The Carrier III
by RaiRoRa
Summary: The vampire state of Louisiana is on the brink of bankruptcy and its enemies are biding their time. Eric Northman's reputation has been tarnished and his consort has left him - and no one in authority is willing to believe that his neighbours are conspiring against him. Rather than sit back and wait for things to take their course, he decides to set things to rights himself.
1. Chapter 1

_Nice to see you again - glad you found me! Let's start the New Year with a new story...  
_

CHAPTER 1

 **Five months previously**

Eric slipped out of his stateroom, pulling the door silently closed behind him. From inside he heard their voices, rising to outraged shrieks – they hadn't even noticed him leave. He gritted his teeth and padded silently down the hall, shoes in hand, wondering where he could go in this wretched palace for some peace and quiet.  
"Why, Eric," Pam drawled. "Leaving so soon? Have the fires of passion been extinguished so quickly?"  
She was standing in front of him, hand on her hip. Her long blond hair had been teased into an elaborate up-do and she was wearing a navy suit, just a tad too tight to be respectable. Seeing his confusion, Pam threw her head back and laughed, stalking along beside him, almost at his height in her towering stilettos.  
"Shut it, Pamela," he growled.  
"In which universe did you imagine _that_ was a good idea?" she asked, nodding back at the door he'd just come through. A woman screamed within, a scream of fury that made Eric wince.

When he'd returned from his disastrous trip to Ireland – jilted, humiliated, empty-handed – he'd ordered Pam to find him a woman. A beautiful woman.  
"A fucking _stunning_ woman," he'd said, looking at her in the mirror. He was fiddling with his tie, trying to get it to sit right. She'd eyed him up and down witheringly, then pulled an imaginary pencil from behind her ear.  
" _A fucking stunning woman_ ," she repeated in a monotone, pretending to write it down.  
"- _two_ fucking stunning women," Eric said. "Make it two. And they'd better be beautiful, Pam. I want every man who sees them to turn green with envy. You got that?"  
" _Green with envy_ ," she said, her invisible pencil skittering across the invisible page. "Two fucking stunning women to show the rest of the American vampires that you don't give a shit about Magdalena Kennick. Got it, boss. Any preferences, any types?"  
"No red-heads," he said decisively.  
"Obviously."  
"And no blondes."  
Pamela paused. "No Sookie Stackhouse lookalikes, either?"  
"No!"  
"Fine, fine," she said mildly. "So we're going to reverse your emasculation with a couple of raven-haired beauties? I can do that."  
"Pamela Swynford de Beaufort, I swear on all the gods ..."  
She'd cackled gleefully, then pulled him around to face her, deftly re-tying his tie.  
"If that's what'll make you feel better," she said mildly, "then that's what I will do. It's not for nothing that I ran the best whorehouse in San Francisco, you know."  
She gave him one of her rare, soft smiles and he touched her cheek in gratitude.  
"One more thing," he said. "I want them... dumb."  
"Dumb?"  
"You know, not very smart. Not bright." He shrugged. "I just don't have the energy for high-maintenance women right now."  
Pamela's smile disappeared and she arched an eyebrow. "You are joking, I presume?"  
"Two dumb, beautiful women," he'd said, turning away to check himself in the mirror once more. The tie was perfect. "How hard can it be?"

And Pamela appeared to have come up trumps. Neve was a tall, dark-skinned young woman whose only occupation had ever been tending to her appearance. She'd left school at 14 to devote herself to it full-time and studied nail-polish and cosmetic trends with unwavering commitment. She had an Instagram account, a YouTube channel, thousands of Facebook followers and Eric quickly found that he was an unwitting star of her self-made reality series: Pamela had shown him a picture of his naked backside on Neve's Instagram account with a plethora of hashtags that seemed to all involve the word 'booty'. Appalled, he'd read through the dozens of comments, terrified that he would find something from the court of Texas or one of the other neighbouring states. He was enough of a laughing stock as it was.

So he had learned to confiscate her phone when she entered his rooms, something that made her bored and fractious within minutes , snapping at him and Evlere, her companion. They two of them had been friends for long enough to assess each other's weakness, then they'd begun a vicious war to establish their pecking order in Eric's life. The other woman was just as beautiful as Neve, but she had come to New Orleans from her home in a trailer park outside Baton Rouge and thought she'd won the jackpot when Pamela had spotted her at a nightclub in the city. At first she'd been awed by Neve's internet _savoir-faire_ but she'd quickly understood that Neve tried Eric's nerves with her demands and nagging, so she liked to talk to him in a babydoll voice, flicking her hair and batting her eyelashes. It might have been sweet a few hundred years ago but Eric found her wiles tedious, and watching her pout made his fingers ball into a fist.

Admittedly, he'd found their competing for his attention rather flattering at first, a balm for his bruised ego, but after a time he began to suspect that they were more concerned with getting one up on each other than pleasing him. And that, quite frankly, is not what he'd wanted. What he'd wanted that evening was a straightforward threesome but instead he'd found himself in the middle of a quarrel about who should get to sit on his right-hand side at the next banquet and – apparently a greater cause for rage - who had first dibs on the grey BMW that was provided for their use. When the shrieking had started, he had slid out of the bed and tiptoed out of the room.  
"You promised me two dumb women," he said to Pam, walking faster so she'd have to hurry – and hopefully topple over in her high-heels.  
But no such luck: she kept pace.  
"They seem dumb enough to me," she said.  
"They're scheming, tiresome vixens," he snapped. "Being with them drains my energy. Grates on my last nerve. Makes me want to skewer my ears with silver. Get where I'm going with this?"  
"You wanted a pair of pretty concubines," she said. "I delivered. I doubt that either of them is capable of spelling _concubine,_ which is the kind of woman I thought you wanted."  
"I ordered two low-maintenance lovers," he growled, standing still so Pam had to almost spin on her heel. "Two pretty idiots. And I got two shrews, intent on wrecking my head with their bitching and quarrelling. Two pretty idiots. Is that too hard to understand?"  
She looked at him in that disdainful way of hers.  
"I understand perfectly," she said. "And I may have a solution for you. There's a company that supplies silicon dolls for the sole purpose of adult entertainment. Should I go ahead and order a couple for you? You can fuck your frustration out on them and they're guaranteed to say not a word, just stare at you adoringly. I think that more or less fulfils your criteria, am I right?"  
Eric tried to stare her down, but the thunderous gaze that worked on everyone else was met with equanimity by Pam. He gave in; he knew this was a battle he would not win. He was aware that she was judging him and at that moment he didn't care.

"What did you want?" he asked, changing the subject.  
Pamela must've needed something; her own suite was at the back of the palace with the rest of the staff's rooms. It was where the apartment he'd shared with Magdalena was, but when he'd returned to New Orleans, he'd walked out of their home and into the former Queen's apartment, much to the chagrin of the hotel staff. Under Magdalena's direction, the former Queen's rooms had been turned into a profitable rental suite, providing much needed income for the vampire state of Louisiana. Magdalena'd been the one that had persuaded him to move into the much smaller and far more modest one-bedroom apartment that had previously housed one of the palace hotel's managers, pointing out that she'd need a kitchen and a bathroom with a functioning toilet. Not to mention the fact that she needed the Queen's suite to turn a profit. She'd always had her eye on the state budget; Louisiana was the most prestigious vampire state but also one of the poorest and under her tight direction, they'd been trying to pull their accounts back into the black. With her gone, Eric had defiantly moved back into the most luxurious suite, one that was appropriate for his station and devoid of any trace of the red-haired woman's presence. Seeing Eric's possessions being carried through the double doors of the Regal Suite, Mr Montgomery had flapped and clucked and tut-tutted, suggesting perhaps a somewhat less imposing residence, as it were, but Eric had thundered at him,  
 _"Am I not the king?"  
_ And Montgomery had slinked away, plainly unhappy with the turn things had taken. Their butler was openly mourning the loss of Eric's consort, fulfilling his duties with a glum look on his face and lacklustre attention to his tasks.

"So what did you want, Pam?" he asked again.  
"Your legal team is here," she said.  
"Good news?" he barked. He wanted good news.  
She grimaced. "Frankly, no," she said. "Do you want a summary?"  
"No, I really don't, but I guess I'd rather hear it from you."  
"Texas denies everything. Everyone denies everything. If someone took your consort, then it was clearly a rogue vampire or rogue vampires. No vampire in Texas' employ will admit to having been involved, and you can forget about that snake in Oklahoma – he's so far up Texas' ass, he's headbutting his liver."  
"No witnesses? Not a single person willing to come forward?"  
"Jessica Fortenberry is, apparently, a biased witness – she's your sheriff, who's going to believe her? And _humans_?" Pamela snorted. "When has the Vampire Authority ever considered a human a reliable witness? Can you imagine Jason Stackhouse under oath?"  
"No," Eric muttered. "But I can imagine Sookie."  
She shook her head. "Do you really want vampires to know that Sookie Stackhouse can't be glamoured?"  
He didn't. He really did not. He set off again down the corridor towards the stairs, but Pam put her hand on his arm.  
"Eric," she said softly, "The biggest problem is Maggie. She was returned to you unharmed. In fact, there's a lingering doubt as to whether she was taken in the first place or just went with them. You two have ... broken up and gone your separate ways – she's no longer your consort. As far as the Authority is concerned, it's kind of a case of no harm, no foul."  
"Texas conspired against me," Eric hissed.  
"You have no witnesses," she repeated. "No witnesses, Eric. Any action you take against Texas will be considered unprovoked and hostile. You have to back down. Live to fight another day."

He considered it, frowning. Pam grinned at him.  
"What now?" he snapped.  
"Your bulgy eyes," she said. "Maggie used to warn us if you were in a temper – she'd say, 'His eyes are bulging! The vein is popping!' and everyone would scamper out of your way. I miss her," she said wistfully.  
"I don't," Eric said and started down the stairs, two at a time. From behind them, they heard the stateroom door slam and one of his women yelled, "Eric! _Errrrric_!"  
He hurried down the stairs.  
 _"Du saknar henne!"_ Pamela called, leaning over the banisters, as though speaking Swedish would make him confess.  
 _"Jag saknar henne ... inte!"_ he called defiantly over his shoulder.  
"Liar!" she shouted and when he looked up, she just shook her head.


	2. Chapter 2

"Boss wants to see you," one of the valets said.  
Patrick Montgomery froze, his fingers pinching a leaf in the flower arrangement he had been fixing for the front foyer. He caught himself quickly; he didn't want to show fear in front of the lower orders.  
"What does he want?" he asked casually.  
"Dunno," the valet replied. "He's got a few old books out and the White Witch is there, too."  
"Hush," Montgomery said crossly. "That's not very respectful, is it?"  
The White Witch. That's what the staff called Pamela de Beaufort behind her back; in fact, Montgomery himself had started it when she'd first moved in, striding around and throwing her weight about. In the meantime, however, they'd found some common ground and he'd begrudgingly come to respect her – and had earned her equally begrudging respect in return. Now all he had to do was to stomp out the nickname he'd come up with, but it had spread like wildfire throughout the staff, to the extent that they often simply referred to her as 'WW'. He could only hope and pray it would never be traced back to him.

Outside the stateroom – the sumptuous apartment whose redecoration he had overseen – he straightened his jacket and his spine. Then knocked discreetly and opened the door.  
King Eric was sitting at his desk, with Pamela de Beaufort perched on barstool beside him. Montgomery looked discreetly around. Through the open bedroom door he saw the messy bed, but no sign of the two women that had been hanging around the king's quarters like a pair of banshees for the past few weeks. He heaved a silent sigh of relief.  
"Your Majesty?" he enquired politely.  
The king had had his hair cut, it was short, sticking up in tufts. It made him look younger, his face more angular and hard.  
"You have served a number of monarchs, I believe," Eric said, getting straight to the point.  
"Indeed, your majesty. I was with Queen Sophie Anne for many decades and served Queen Catherine all the time she was on the throne."  
"But not Compton?"  
"King William was intent on taking his court to northern Louisiana, sire, and I wanted to stay here."  
It was a half-truth. King William, with all the charm of a proper Southern gentleman, had suggested Montgomery's services might be superfluous in his vision of the Louisianan court, the pared-down monarchy run out of Compton's family home in the bayou. King William had been able to make most things sound agreeable, even being fired.

"I am looking at these ledgers," King Eric said, "looking at the accounts for the Kingdom of Louisiana and I'm at a loss to understand how we got so deep in the fucking shit. Pamela here thinks you might be able to enlighten me."  
Montgomery was speechless. He looked at Pam, unable to understand why she'd just thrown him under the bus.  
"Patrick," she said in a gentle voice, "you can speak openly here. You have my word of honour, nothing you say will be held against you. The king needs to pull his head out of his ass and you might be able to help him understand the lie of the land."  
"Well, sire," he began, floundering, "well, I suppose things started to unravel with Queen Sophie Anne. For a long time there was no clear distinction made between her personal finances and the finances of the state, and when her personal spending got out of control, she took to – "

He stopped, appalled. Eric was staring at him, cold-eyed. Sophie Anne, capricious and sneaky, had started selling her blood and Mr Montgomery suddenly remembered that she'd charged her sheriffs with selling it. Mr Northman, now King Eric, included. He licked his lips nervously.  
"She took to ... finding alternative income streams," Montgomery finished weakly.  
Eric nodded. "And King William? How did he deal with Sophie Anne's debt?"  
"One of her majesty's greatest expenses had always been her residences. She preferred to rent, not buy, as she liked to move every few years and she had no time for the intricacies of real estate. If she wanted a new house, she wanted one now."  
Or a new villa with a dedicated day-light room, complete with Grecian columns and a heated swimming pool. Her final residence had cost an eye-watering sum and she had barely lived there for half a year before she'd met the True Death.  
"So Compton moving back to his own house cut down on one of the state's major expenses?" Eric asked, leaning forward to consult something on one of the print-outs before him.  
"Indeed," Montgomery concurred.  
Eric read silently, his mouth twisted in distaste, one of his large fingers running down through a list of figures that contained rather too much red for anyone's liking.  
"Do you think Compton was a good king?" Eric asked suddenly, looking up.  
Was it a trap? Montgomery looked from him to Pamela and back. She nodded her head encouragingly.  
"Initially, yes," the butler answered. "But then things got – "  
"- weird," Eric finished.  
"- fucked up," Pam supplied helpfully.  
"- things got out of hand," he said.  
Eric looked at him and nodded.

"And Queen Catherine? How did she persuade the banks to give her an enormous loan to build this monstrosity?" Eric asked. "Did they not look at their books? Louisiana is up to the hilt in debt and has been since ... since the 1970s, as far as I can see."  
"Your Majesty," he said, treading carefully, "for all her faults, Queen Catherine could be very persuasive and she had a vision. One that a lot of vampires in this part of Louisiana found very exciting, very inspiring. She wanted a return to our former glory; she wanted New Orleans to be known as the vampire capital of the world. And for that, a vampire queen needs a vampire palace."  
"Hmm. Make Louisiana Great Again?" Eric asked sardonically.  
"She had a long-term plan," Montgomery added quickly, keen to defend his former employer. "She knew that people like pomp and circumstance and that's what she'd wanted to create."

She knew this because this is what he'd taught her. Montgomery, an avid fan of the British Royal Family, had shown her videos, news footage, photographs – a monarchy that has to justify its existence is a doomed monarchy. A monarch, he had told her, must be aloof. Shrouded in mystique. Generating an income, even if it's just in the sales of trinkets and souvenirs. And Catherine had instantly understood. Many of the other states – New York and Texas, for example – were far wealthier, but Louisiana had New Orleans.  
"New Orleans has vampire history," he'd whispered to the queen. "Vampire legends. Vampire lore. How can New York compare with that?"  
Catherine, instinctively, knew what he meant and pretty soon plans were underfoot to construct the neo-gothic palace that was suppose to hearken back to eerie New Orleans' history – a pinch of the French Quarter, a dab of Buckingham Palace. It was to become a tourist magnet., part-palace and part-hotel. Feel like a queen yourself in one of the exclusive vampire-themed suites. Rub shoulders with real vamps in the blood-red restaurant. Listen to an undead orchestra playing creole tunes. It was a potential goldmine.

He came out of his short reverie to find Pam and Eric staring at him curiously.  
"And what did Miss Kennick think of this vision?" Eric asked, picking the words carefully, like chocolates from a box.  
"She understood it, Your Majesty. She knew what Catherine had been aiming for. She'd grown up in Emperor Charles' court, sire, she understood how a monarchy must work."

He could've said much more but he didn't. Talking about Miss Kennick made him sad; she was one of the few humans he felt he could ever feel the kind of deep affection a father might feel for a child. She knew what he wanted to do and she'd taken it one step further, working tirelessly to reach out to local Louisianan organisations, trying to promote better cooperation between the vampire and human community. Before she'd been taken, she'd been working on a plan to organise vampire support for a homeless shelter in the city ("Vampires are up all night anyway, right? They might as well be doing something productive"), hoping it would bring some positive publicity.  
"Down the line," she'd said, "I'm hoping this might help us lure some European royalty over here for a visit."  
"European?" he'd said, swallowed. "Maybe British?"  
"I'd hope so," she'd grinned impishly. "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Or the Sussexes – they're always visiting charities and whatnot. They could visit our charity, don't you think? What a PR coup that would be for us."  
He'd clutched his chest in ecstasy. "Kate Middleton here?" he'd cried. " _Here_? With _us_?"  
"Why not?"  
And she'd squeezed his arm affectionately. He hadn't doubted for an instant that she would certainly try her best to make it happen – she had the kind of energy that the court needed.

"You've been very helpful," Pamela said. "Thank you, Patrick."  
"One more question," Eric said. "What kind of king do you think I make?"  
"I – eh, sire, I –"  
If he were human, his underarms would be sweat-soaked. Of this the butler was sure.  
"I hear we've lost quite a few members of staff," Eric suddenly said, with an abrupt _volte-face_. "Is this true?"  
"Yes, I'm afraid it is."  
"Why?"  
"Well – eh, I, um –"  
"Say it as it is, man," Eric said. "You heard what Pam said."  
He stood up and came around the desk, so he could sit on its edge, directly in front of Mr Montgomery.  
"You are the fourth monarch in less than a decade," Montgomery said slowly. "At first, the staff thought you showed great promise. You and Miss Kennick seemed to have a firm hold of the reins, but things seem, once again, to be ... getting out of hand."  
"So they want Maggie back?"  
"Your Majesty, they want Louisiana back. They want the state to be run properly. They want a king who is focussed on the task at hand. This is not an easy job to do and, frankly, if you don't wish to do it correctly, we would all rather you abdicated and allowed someone else to do it."  
He heard Pamela hiss but he could not take his eyes off Eric's face. The seconds seemed like hours; he kept his eyes locked on the king, ready to spring if the monarch sprang to rip the head from his shoulders.  
"Hmm," Eric said. He stood upright, to his full height, towering almost a full head above the butler. Montgomery raised his eyes to the monarch's.  
"Thank you for your insights," the king said. "I appreciate your honesty."  
Patrick felt relief wash over him.

"Pamela," the king said, "We're going to get this place back in order, then I'm going to take some time off to go get the bastard who took Magdalena. I want to take Texas down and I want enough financial retribution to make his eyes water, and the only way I can do that is if I have Corbyn."  
"Will you be returning with Miss Kennick?" Montgomery asked bravely, hardly daring to hope.  
Eric glanced at Pamela, who arched an elegant eyebrow.  
"Yes," he said decisively. Pam rolled her eyes wordlessly.  
"Hurrah!" Montgomery cheered. "Good news, sire, good news. And if Miss Kennick is to return, should I get rid of those ... women for you?"  
Eric looked at him, startled, and one of his rare grins spread across his face.  
"Get rid of them?" he repeated, amused. "Like, straight away?"  
"However you wish, majesty," Montgomery said. He had a few ideas as to how to do so himself. Disaffected wretches. "But the sooner, the better, don't you think?"  
"It would probably suffice if you would simply glamour them and send them on their way," Eric said, still smiling.  
"Consider it done," the butler said cheerfully.  
"And when you're finished, could you make an appointment with the guy from the Chamber of Commerce?" Eric said. "And I'm going to want to talk to someone from the bank, too. Can you arrange that?"  
"Certainly, sire!" Montgomery could hardly keep the joy out of his voice. He left the room as one should in the presence of a monarch, never turning his back on the king, but he paused at the door to give Eric a thumbs-up. The king smiled, nodded in acknowledgement, and then turned back to his ledgers. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Ballygar, Co. Galway, Ireland  
Present Day**

We should've been celebrating. Petra had just read aloud our first five-star review, a glowing endorsement of their hospitality and the rooms we had worked so hard on. The large house was being pulled back from the brink of ruin, metre by metre. It now had five sumptuous, rentable guestrooms, even though my employers and I were living in the unheated attic rooms that had once housed the maids, and a dining room that had been lovingly restored to a fraction of its former glory on a shoestring budget. The bathrooms were functioning; water was generally hot – hott _ish_ , maybe – and we had made sure that none of the guests' bedrooms had leaks. Any more. We'd had our first guests and they'd been charmed by the old house and its history, and the three of us – Petra, Imelda and I – had bent over backwards to make them feel welcome. And it had paid off with our first reviews.

Imelda had produced a bottle of sparkling wine and we were about to toast our future success. But my heart wasn't in it; considering I had almost worked my fingers to the bone to get this creaky old house back on its feet, I should've been bursting with joy. Instead, I had a feeling of residual dread, like a headache you wake up with, one you cannot shake. All I could think of was the fact that Eric Northman had been in my parents' house – my home! – and had glamoured my mother. It had taken every ounce of self-control not to run to my little car and race up the motorway to Dublin to see if she was okay. And collar Eric Northman and give him a butt-kicking he would not forget. But what good would it have done? By the time I made the two-hour trip back to the capital, he would've been long gone and my mother would've been in bed, content in her oblivion. What had changed, though, was my feeling of safety: he knew where I was. Ballygar was tiny – and I mean _tiny_. It was literally a crossroads with a church, a pub-slash-grocery shop and a scattering of houses. The Big House was its sole tourist attraction and the three of us were known far and wide in rural Galway. We were a bit of an attraction ourselves, the locals couldn't quite figure out what was going on: a pair of lesbians and me. Was I their daughter? Their niece? Romantically involved? I'm pretty certain we'd not only been providing food for lunch but food for gossip for months and months; people I'd never met before knew my name, gave me knowing smiles when I stopped on the road to pet their dog or queued to pay for milk at the village shop. Eric would only need to stop at the pub and ask about a red-headed Dubliner and at least seven villagers would personally escort him to Ballygar House within five minutes.  
And this, my friends, is no exaggeration.

So I bided my time, then arranged a weekend off to visit my parents, leaving early Friday morning so I could have lunch with my mother before my father came home from work. I fretted all the way to Dublin about what I should say to her, how I should broach the topic - but I needn't have worried. When we sat down to eat our lunch – scrambled eggs and baked beans ("Your favourite!" my mother said. Yes, when I was eleven, but the thought was appreciated) – I broached the topic delicately.  
"Have you had any vampire visitors recently?" I asked. "Anyone ... unusual?"  
She put down her fork, dismayed.  
"Oh, dear," she said. "Did he tell you? Oh, my."  
"Who?"  
"Eric Northman."  
I almost choked on my eggs.  
"You know he was here?" I spluttered.  
"Of course. Sure, didn't I invite him in?"  
" _Mum_!"  
"Ah, Maggie. You should have seen him. God love him: he was just standing there on the front step in the rain, all sad and everything. I mean, I know he's a bit of a scoundrel, but he's been through a lot as well and he misses you so much – "  
"That fucker glamoured you," I snapped.  
She reeled – at the bad language or the glamouring? Not sure.  
"He did not!" she said. Then in a wobbly voice, "Did he?"  
I told her about the phone call and she grew indignant.  
"That _pup_!" she said. "And I invited him and all. I even gave him a blood – and a real True Blood, not one of the knock-offs your father is always making me buy from Aldi. And it wasn't just a True Blood, it was an AB! One of the _expensive_ ones!"  
She shook her head in disgust. "I made him promise he wouldn't try any tricks before I invited him in. And what did he go and do? Glamour me. That ... that _brat_."  
My mother couldn't bring herself to call him anything worse, but I knew she was tempted.  
"Sneaky motherfucker," I said, to help her out.  
She battled with herself before she said, "Yes, he is." And then she squeezed my hand and said, "I'm so sorry, Maggie. I just felt sorry for him, that's all. He really seems to miss you, you know. When he talked about you, he got all shy."  
"There's no need to feel sorry for him. And I doubt he's missing me all that much," I countered. "He's been shagging left, right and centre since I left."

Her cheeks pinkened.  
"How do you know that?" she cried.  
"His blood," I muttered. "I can feel ... stuff. He hasn't been sitting at home learning to knit or taking up woodturning, believe me."  
My mother grew a little flustered. "That sounds terrible," she said. "You poor thing. I didn't realise it was that bad."  
I shook my head. "It's worse," I said. "You know the way you associate a certain scent with someone? Well, imagine you had a relationship with someone who wore a particular aftershave. And imagine you broke up. Even though you might move miles and miles away from your ex, you'd still be jolted back whenever you smelled his aftershave. You know, in a store. Or passing another man on a street wearing the same cologne. That's what it's like, except it's not only a scent but a feeling. I mean, I could be on my hands and knees, scratching dirt out of the cracks of a floorboard with a butter knife and suddenly I just get his smell, his smell fills the room, and I know ... I know what he's up to."  
And the dreams.  
God, the dreams. Waking in the morning, sweat-soaked and disoriented, my hand feeling across the cold sheets for his colder body.  
"I'm so sorry," she said again.  
"It'll go away," I said dully, returning my attention to my baked beans. "Eventually, I guess."  
"It's been nearly a year and a half," my mother pointed out. "Shouldn't it be gone by now?"  
I gave her a wry grin. "You'd think, right? Times like this, I wish I could be glamoured."

She ate a mouthful of toast and then cleared her throat.  
"You could be," she said.  
"I can't. Dad can't either. It's our superpower, dontcha know."  
"Well," she said, lowering her voice, "you actually can."  
I leaned back in my chair, flabbergasted. "I don't believe you."  
"You can," she insisted. "But you'd have to be really, really drunk. I mean: _really_ drunk. Intoxicated. I mean, I don't know how you all do it, but it's like you have the willpower to resist their hypnosis: I've seen truly ancient vampires try it on your father and he stares them down, not a problem for him. But I saw Charles glamour him once when he was off his ear on whiskey."  
"Emperor Charles?" I asked.  
"Yes, we had a poker game here one night – oh, decades ago. You were just a baby at the time. Your father, your uncle James, your granddad, Charles and your grandmother. Charles lost and he was a pretty sore loser, do you remember? Well, he filled your father up with an ancient whiskey he'd got back before Ireland became a Free State and your father could barely stand up, let alone put up his glamour defences. Charles glamoured him and the debt was forgotten."  
"And granddad let him do that?"  
"Ah, sure, it was all in the spirit of fun," my mother laughed. "Charles would've never let anyone know what he'd done; he loved your father like his own son. It was just funny to see your father all cross-eyed and meek. We fell about the place laughing."

Realisation dawned slowly.  
"So what you're saying is that I could down a bottle of Jameson and we could get some vampire to wipe my memory? No more Eric Northman, no Ilaria, no Stephen, no Louisiana?"  
She shrugged.  
"If that's what you wanted," she said, "I'm sure Moya would do it for you and be discreet about it. I'm quite certain she'd love you to forget you ever met Eric Northman in the first place."  
My mind raced: a blank slate. I would be like a blank slate. I could say goodbye to Petra and Imelda and move on; maybe find a job in Belfast or London. I could live an unencumbered life; meet another man that I might learn to love, without being haunted by a half-memory of long limbs entwined in mine, the smell of sweet apples and sea-salt. The vampire court of Louisiana would mean nothing to me, it wouldn't even exist within the realm of my consciousness. And even if he did find me, he would mean nothing to me. There would be nothing there, nothing between us. I could just walk away.  
"Just say the word," my mother said. "I have a bottle of whiskey around here somewhere."  
"No," I answered reflexively.  
She patted my hand.  
"Think about it," she said. "You could leave him behind and finally get on with your life, instead of being in the limbo you find yourself now."  
I shook my head.  
"No," I said, but not so certainly this time.  
My mother smiled at me kindly. "Just say the word," she said again. "And Eric Northman will be gone forever."  
It was tempting.

x - x - x

 _Thank you for your comments, I love to hear what you think - it helps me figure out which direction to go.  
Glamouring or no glamouring? What do you think?_


	4. Chapter 4

My father and the Empress surveyed my work silently and shook their heads.  
"This is a bad idea," my father said glumly, looking at the dining room table. It was covered in Post-It notes, each containing something or someone I needed to forget. He pointed at a few and read them aloud: " _Shreveport. Sookie Stackhouse. Jason Stackhouse. Ilaria Moore. Vampire Kings of Ohio, Akansas, Texas, the Islands, New York. Bon Temps & the bar in Bon Temps with the funny name. Red-haired sheriff of Area 5, Jessica Somebody and her big husband. _Why do you need to forget the red-haired sheriff of Area 5? Sure, you can't remember her name as it is."  
"Dad, it's part of my elaborate plan," I said, trying not to slur my words. I had begun drinking at suppertime, and had had more than a few glasses of wine. I'd gone past Effusive Maggie – where I'd repeatedly told my patient mother how much I loved her, my father, my grandparents, everyone I'd ever met. Eric Northman. I _looooooved_ Eric Northman, sob! Loved him! Except I _hated_ Eric Northman. Hated him, loathed him. Despised him. Yeah, to hell with him. Which pushed me over into Maudlin Maggie, who was a lot less fun. I cried a lot, then drank some more and then became Feisty Maggie, who told my mother that I couldn't care less about Eric Northman. Fuck him. Yeah, like, _fuck_ him. I didn't give a shit about him.

Then I became Loquacious Maggie, who was explaining to her father the complicated plan she had concocted for her glamouring. I'd spent the afternoon compiling a list of anyone I could think of from my time in the US, coming up with a watertight backstory – because that was the tricky thing with glamouring. You had to make sure there were no strings left to pull, nothing that would unravel a careful story. I had come up with something that was close enough to the truth to stand up to prodding and my solution seemed pretty innocuous: I'd gone to the US with the Empress for the international conference on the Vampire Charter and the Queen of Louisiana had asked me to stay on to work in their archive department as part of her day-staff. I'd continued when the new King had taken over but as I had worked during the day, I didn't know him or the other vampires, had only seen them briefly from afar. I'd basically been a lowly liaison officer, compiling archival material and working with local organisations to help improve vampire/human relations. This is what I told my parents and the Empress, and they responded by looking ... thoughtful.

"I don't think it will work," the Empress said finally. "Even if I do manage to glamour you, it's just too much information to feed you with."  
"And if you do manage to get you to forget all of this," my father said, waving a hand at the table, "what's to say you haven't forgotten someone or something?"  
I didn't want to say it, but I had a niggling feeling that I had left something out.  
"This is the most important stuff," I said resolutely and picked up two sticky notes to show them. One had ERIC NORTHMAN written on it, the other had HRAEFN/RAVEN/CORBYN. I had highlighted them in green marker to show that they, above all, were essential. The Empress took the sticky note with HRAEFN/RAVEN/CORBYN written on it and stared at it before replacing it on the table.  
"And what if either of these vampires should find you?" she asked quietly.  
"That's just it," I said, "I want you to undo whatever their blood did to me. I want you to tell me I feel nothing for them. I'm not interested in them, I'm not attracted to them. They repulse me. Like, seriously scare the crap out of me."  
"I don't think I can do that," the Empress said, shaking her head. "Apart from the fact that your family will always have close contact to vampires, we have enough problems with haters without adding another to the ranks."  
"Just make her forget them," my mother chimed in softly. "She's had to go through enough without suffering the after-effects of their blood. Just set her free."  
I looked at her gratefully and smiled. She smiled back, but she looked amused, rather than tender. I was probably cross-eyed already. My head was certainly starting to spin.

"Very well," the Empress said. "And what will you do after this?"  
"I'm going to hand in my notice and find a new job," I said. While still sober, I had emailed Mr Montgomery and asked him for a reference, explaining what I wanted him to say. He would know that 'Live-In Lover', 'Mistress' or 'Royal Consort' were not likely to snag me a decent job; I knew I could count on him to describe my tasks in a more employer-friendly way and had given him a few suggestions as to how to phrase my tasks in a way that didn't sound utterly insane to anyone who'd never worked in a royal court. I'd hand in my notice, do a couple more weeks with Petra and Imelda and then move somewhere else. Start over.  
Again.

"And what if Northman finds you?" asked my mother with a _you-know-what-I-mean_ glint in her eye. We hadn't told anyone about his visit and it would remain our secret.  
"He won't," I said shortly.  
I knew Eric: in his systematic and thorough way, he would track the dark vampire down, leaving no stone unturned. I figured he'd need months to find Hraefn, if ever he did, and knowing how he liked to tie up loose ends neatly, only then would he come to Ballygar to find me. But I intended to be long gone and far away before that happened.  
"And what if that other fella comes looking for you?" my father asked.  
"He won't," the Empress said. I looked at her and she held my gaze, evenly, steadfastly. "I will make sure of it," she said.  
"Fine," said my father, breaking the silence. "Let's get it over with, then. I suppose the worst that can happen is that she has a raging hangover tomorrow."  
The Empress cleared her throat and placed her cold hands on my cheeks. She stared deep into my eyes.  
"Magdalena," she said in a low, cooing voice. "Can you hear me, Magdalena?"  
"Yes," I said. And smiled at her. "Your fingers are freezing."  
The Empress dropped her hands. "It's not working," she said shortly.  
Wordlessly, my mother turned to the sideboard and extracted a bottle of Jamesons. She poured me a generous glass of whiskey and put it on the table in front of me.  
" _Sláinte,_ " she said.  
"Cheers," I replied, even as my stomach flopped in protest.  
"When you're finished, we'll try again," the Empress said. "Drink, Magdalena. I think you're going to have to get a lot drunker than that."


	5. Chapter 5

I must've got the flu while I was at my parents. I was in bed for days, groggy, weary, headachy and chilled. My mother made me soup and helped me to the bathroom to spill the contents of my stomach again and again. While I was recovering, a registered letter arrived from Louisiana and when I opened it, I was delighted to find a glowing reference from my old employer, Mr Montgomery. He'd attached a kind note saying how much he missed me and how he hoped that I would some day return to take up my old post. It was very kind of him, but my job in Louisiana had been pretty dull. I mean, you'd think that working with vampires, especially a vampire king, would be kind of thrilling. Sexy. Glamorous. Well, if you work on their day staff, you basically never see them: I had always finished work long before most of them rose. I don't think I ever saw the king face to face, to be honest. Instead, I'd spent my days doing much the same thing my uncle James does for the Empress, compiling statistics and updating a database of vampires: where they lived, who they lived with and – most importantly - where they had to pay tax.  
Yawn.

After a week of being mollycoddled, I drove back to Ballygar and spoke to my employers about the plans I'd hatched while at home in Dublin. They were very gracious; they said that they'd never reckoned on my staying so long anyway and that they hoped I would find a job doing something I loved. Something I loved? I had all kinds of plans: I wanted to work in academia again, I hoped I could find something at a museum, installation, national heritage site – certainly, I applied everywhere I could. I sent off an application for the post of librarian at a university in Glasgow and did a Skype interview, which I thought went very well. I sent off emails to museums and universities around the British Isles, hoping for more interviews. Petra helped me scan in all of my documents and read aloud my certificates as I typed in addresses and filled in online forms.  
"So Kennick is your maiden name, then?" she said. "Will you be dropping O'Reilly now?"  
"Yes," I said. Was O'Reilly my married name? That was a bit weird, I could picture my ex-husband but suddenly had difficulty remembering his name. Although, to be fair, I hadn't seen him in years.  
But, still.  
"And your first name is Magdalena?" she'd said. "I thought you said it was Margaret."  
"Did I?" I said. "I probably did. Magdalena is such a ridiculous name. Who's called Magdalena nowadays?"

I laughed it off, but when I went upstairs that evening, I looked in the drawer where I kept all of my personal items. I had a pair of diamond earrings that I couldn't remember getting and two passports with identical photos. One had my real name on it, Magdalena Maria Kennick, but the other one was issued to Margaret O'Reilly and the birthdate was different. I ran my finger over the photo, looked at the holograms. It seemed real enough. Why did I have a fake passport? Where did it come from? The fact that I had holes in my memory was chilling. I wrote down FAKE PASSPORT and DIAMOND EARRINGS on the list I was keeping in the notebook by my bed, a list of oddities that I had been noticing. Maybe it was early onset Alzheimer's? That started when you were young, right? I felt a trickle of ice run down my back and wondered whether I should make an appointment with a doctor.

There was a knock on the door.  
"The vampires have just checked out," Imelda said, popping her head around the door. "In case you want to go downstairs."  
We had one vampire room and, very rarely, vampire guests. For some reason, I found them really sinister. They literally gave me the creeps and I'd told Petra and Imelda that I didn't want to have anything to do with them.  
"I know it's racist," I'd said, "but they just give me the heebie-jeebies. I'd rather not do their check-in; they kind of scare me."  
"Some of them are very nice," Petra had argued. "Just like any other guest."  
I shrugged. "I know," I said, "but they make me feel uneasy. I really don't want to do it."  
My employers had glanced at each other. They weren't happy, maybe because they'd faced all kinds of discrimination themselves over the years, but I remained steadfast in my refusal to deal with the vampire guests. They unnerved me in a way I couldn't put in words, so when the doorbell rang after 6 pm, Imelda welcomed the evening guests and I stayed out of the way, watching them follow her up the stairs. Once, I'd been peering around the door when she walked past with a vampire, a middle-aged man pulling a suitcase on wheels. I'd retreated back into the shadows of the room when they walked by, but he'd stopped and stuck his head around the door.  
And then he sniffed, a long intake of air, as though he were tracking an animal.  
"This way," I'd heard Imelda say and he'd reluctantly withdrawn, leaving me shaking in the darkness.

I stretched out my arms and decided to go down to the kitchen and fix myself a snack. Maybe watch some television on the little portable TV we kept down there. Now that the vampires were gone, I felt free to move around the big old house once more. I shuddered at the thought of their icy, pale skin and their sharp fangs.  
Ugh.


	6. Chapter 6

* Watch out! Three new chapters in one go! Go back to chapter 4 to start today's installments... *

"In short, what you're saying is that you haven't found him?" Pamela said.  
The signal was surprisingly clear; it sounded like she was in the next room instead of on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. But her voice was weak; she probably had the bleeds. The time difference between Louisiana and western Ireland meant that she should've been resting instead of taking Eric's call.  
"No," Eric said, "I ran into a dead end with him, but I have found a means to lure him to me. Now, if I can get Magdalena back, he won't be able to resist. He'll walk into my front room to get her."  
"Do you know where she is?"  
"More or less," he admitted. Kind of less, if he was honest.  
"You're not going to try to abduct her, are you?" Pam drawled. "I'm quite certain she must be mighty sick of it by now."  
"No," Eric said, "I am going to woo her."  
"Woo her?" his progeny repeated. " _Woo_ her?"  
"Yes," he replied.  
There was silence on the other end of the phone.  
"Maybe you should rethink abducting her," Pam said helpfully. "You might have a better chance of success."  
"Goodbye, Pam," he said. "Thank you, Pam."  
"Happy to oblige," she said and hung up.

Eric pressed a button on the SatNav of his hired car and looked out the window in the darkness. There were no street lights; he was driving down country roads in the pouring rain and he was pretty sure he had taken the wrong turn somewhere. He drove back the way he came, taking another turn at the crossroads. Five minutes later, he passed a sign that said BALLYGAR and drove past a pub and church, only to find himself on a dark road a couple of minutes later.  
"That was it?" he muttered to himself, pulling over. He manoeuvred the car carefully on the narrow road, backing into the ditch to turn around. He drove back, this time slowing as he passed the pub, then pulled over and parked.  
"So this really is it," he said in wonder.  
Ballygar could barely be termed a village: in the darkness he could make out a church and a wall that probably circled a cemetery. The windows of the pub were bright, bright enough for him to see a small shop and post office next door. He sighed and adjusted his face into his best non-threatening expression, rooting around on the back seat for his battered leather jacket. He checked himself in the mirror, opening another button in his shirt, so he'd look more casual, more like a tourist, then got out of the car and ran for the door of the pub, accidentally stepping in deep puddles along the way. By the time he reached the entrance, the hems of his dark jeans were soaking wet and his hair was sopping.  
 _Fucking Ireland,_ he thought crossly _. It never stops raining._

The pub wasn't full; in fact there were only a handful of souls brave enough to venture out on such a wet night. Eric looked around: all of the clientele were elderly and male, probably local farmers. The only woman in the pub stood behind the counter, a broad woman with her hands on her hips and a dishcloth slung on her shoulders. She was looking Eric up and down as he approached, an unashamed appraisal.  
"Jesus Christ almighty tonight," she said in greeting. "You're a big fella, arentcha?"  
"I am," he agreed and gave her his most charming smile. She returned it, her wide face splitting into a wider grin.  
"American, are you?"  
"Yes," he said.  
"Passing through?"  
"I'm looking for somewhere to stay the night, actually," he said.  
"You'll be wanting Ballygar House then," she said. "That's the only place to stay around here. You can still check in and all – they take late check-ins because they have..."  
She looked around and lowered her voice. "... a vampire room."  
"Really?" Eric said, feigning shock.  
"They do! What can I get you?"  
He pointed at a tap and she started to pour him a beer.  
"They even have vamps staying up there every now and again," the barkeeper said in a confiding tone. "Like, real ones."  
Eric shook his head in pretend amazement and paid for his drink.  
"But, sure, they're all cracked up there, anyway," the woman said. Eric had difficulty understanding her accent, it took him a moment or two to get her meaning. She lowered her voice again. "They're lesbians. Three of them in it, very strange set-up."  
"Mmm," Eric said, raising the glass to his lips. He pretended to drink, wiping the disgusting liquid off his top lip with the back of his hand. When she went down the other end of the bar to take an order from one of the elderly patrons, Eric's hand flashed out and he tipped the contents of the glass into the sink behind the counter. He glanced around discreetly; no one seemed to have noticed. Or if they had, they were pretending they hadn't.

When the barwoman returned, he asked for directions to Ballygar House and two of the older gentlemen offered to drive with him, in case he got lost. Eric looked at their reddened cheeks and noses and turned their offer down, but managed to get them to agree on the most straightforward route to the hotel. He ran back to his car – hair still wet, pants wetter – and drove off in the darkness, windscreen wipers swooshing across the glass, peering through the rain-splattered glass in an attempt to see the sign for Ballygar House.

He must have driven past it twice and was about to go back to the pub to get someone to show him the way when he spotted the sign, almost blown over in the wind, and turned down the windy avenue that led to the house. Turning the corner, he drove up to a large, three-storey house with an impressive front door. He parked beside a small car and darted through the rain, pressing sharply on the doorbell while he tried his best to cover his head with the collar of his jacket.

The door was thrown open and a tall woman with extremely short hair opened it.  
"Welcome to Ballygar House," she said with a warm smile. She stood aside and let him in, so he could drip on the chipped black and white tiled floors.  
"Have you got a room for the day?" Eric asked. "A vampire room?"  
The woman discreetly assessed him.  
"We do," she answered. "For one night? I mean, day?"  
"I think so," he said. "I'm just passing through."  
She indicated that he should follow her to the desk by the stairs and he did so, looking around. The house had probably been magnificent once; now it was a little worn, a little worse for the wear. But a lot of love had been invested in it: the banisters still smelled of fresh varnish and some of the floor tiles were shinier than others, where they had probably been replaced.  
"Please sign here," she said with the same warm smile and he paused for a second before he wrote, _John Magnusson_.  
"I'll take you upstairs to your room, Mr Magnusson," she said. "Just come this way."  
He picked up his bag and followed her up the stairs.  
"Do you run this place by yourself?" he asked, following in her footsteps.  
She chuckled. "Oh, no, no. My wife and I run it and we have a small staff to keep this place ticking over."  
He looked at the paintings on the freshly-painted stairway: pastoral scenes. Cloudy Irish landscapes.  
"A small staff?" he said conversationally. "How many does it take to keep a big place like this ... ticking over?"  
The woman glanced over her shoulder and laughed. "Oh, not as many as we would like, to be sure. We have a couple of women who come in to help us with the cleaning and then there's Maggie, she's kind of a Girl Friday. She does everything from preparing the breakfasts to fixing the heating. And my wife Imelda and I, of course."  
Eric felt a jolt inside, he could barely prevent himself from clenching his fist in triumph. He'd found her. _Yes_.

The woman stopped in front of a door to open it. She let him go in before her, switching the light on swiftly inside. The room was very nice: the bed looked comfortable; the windows had electric blinds and black-out curtains. The walls were covered in a floral wallpaper that had probably been popular when the house was first built and Eric's keen eye noticed that some of the furniture might have been original.  
"Excellent," he said and the woman beside him beamed. She turned and pointed at a door.  
"The bathroom is in there – let the shower run for a couple of minutes warm the water up. The button for the electric blinds is here, no one will disturb you during the day. Would you like an artificial blood? We don't have much of a choice but I can warm you up a nice O Positive – the last vampire guests here said it was just the right thing for a chilly night. This is the remote control for the TV, it's pretty straightforward. And the heating is a bit temperamental," she said, "sometimes you need to give the radiator a bit of a bang."  
"Or just call Maggie," he said with a grin.  
The woman looked momentarily confused.  
"Your Girl Friday? The one who can fix the heating?" he said lightly.  
The woman was flustered. "Oh, yes, that's right. She's ... eh... she doesn't work nights, I'm afraid." She touched the radiator. "But it seems to be working," she said reassuringly. "It feels quite warm."  
"Excellent," Eric said again.  
She nodded her head and left the room, wishing him a pleasant stay.

Eric stripped quickly, throwing his wet jeans over a chair to dry. Completely naked, he pulled back the covers on the bed and rubbed the sheets between his fingers, smelling the fabric deeply. Could he smell her? Was that faint scent hers, the smell of her finger oils on the bedclothes? He padded into the bathroom, turned on the shower and stepped inside without waiting for the water to warm. He stood under the water, feeling it turn warm, then hot, pounding off his skin, before he squeezed some shower gel into his hands and washed himself. His skin warmed, his fingers lingered on his penis, feeling it swell in anticipation of Maggie's touch. He grinned again, turning off the shower and wrapping a towel around his waist. He went back into the bedroom where he heard a knock on the door. He opened it a crack and found another woman, smaller than the first, with a pint glass of blood on a tray. He presumed this was Imelda, the wife, and he smiled at her but she averted her eyes, speaking to the glass.  
"I'm sorry, Mr Magnusson, I didn't mean to disturb you. I just wanted to bring you your blood," she mumbled, embarrassed by the sight of his naked shoulder in the narrow crack of the door.  
"No problem," he answered, sliding a hand out to take the glass.  
Inside, he drank it, watched a little television, answered a couple of email enquiries from Pam. He watched the clock hands move slowly, waiting. When two hours had passed, he stood up and walked over to the radiator, surveyed it for a moment. Then he reached out and turned the dial, grinding it till it came off in his hands. He looked at the plastic valve in his hand and turned it over, before throwing it on the bed.  
"Oops," he said to the empty room. "Radiator's broken. I guess that means I'd better call Maggie."  
He picked up the phone beside his bed and dialled 10 for reception.


	7. Chapter 7

_I've updated a lot in the past few days, so if you've just joined us again, make sure you don't need to back to chapter 4 first ;-)_

 _x – x- x_

Petra closed the door behind her, then clamped a hand over her mouth. Her whole body shook. Imelda and I looked on in horror as a single tear trickled down her cheek.  
"Is everything okay?" Imelda whispered. "What happened?"  
"He was naked," Petra said. " _Gott im Himmel_ , he was _naked_!"  
She laughed silently: big, heaving laughs. I buried my face in my hands and laughed as quietly as I could; when I looked up, Imelda was holding her sides, making tiny squeaks as she tried to be silent.  
"What did you do?" I whispered.  
"Well, he looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see him – you know, see _all_ of him," Petra said. I clutched Imelda and laughed into the shoulder of her pyjamas. "Then I said, 'Mr Magnusson, it seems I have surprised you. Maybe you would like to put on some clothing before I look at your radiator.'"  
"Look at his radiator!" I gasped and dissolved into another spasm of silent laughter.  
Petra nodded firmly. She was close to six foot tall, a very imposing figure. If she told you to put your clothes back on, you'd better do so. Quickly.  
"Well done," her wife whispered admiringly. "I wouldn't have been able to say anything, I would've been totally lost for words."  
"Is the heating actually broken?" I said in a low voice.  
She nodded. "It's like a sauna in there," she confirmed.  
"Maybe that's why he was naked?" Imelda said hopefully.  
"He was naked because he's a vampire pervert," I muttered.  
"Perhaps he gets turned on watching women do DIY?" Imelda suggested.  
"Hmm," I agreed.  
It was a possibility; I nodded thoughtfully.

"Maggie, will you go in and have a look – " Petra began.  
"Have a look!" Imelda echoed and bent over to laugh into her cupped hands.  
"- have a look and see if you can do something with the thermostat. Maybe it's just jammed."  
"I will, but you're coming with me," I hissed. "I'm not going in there by myself and she's useless."  
I jerked a thumb at Imelda, who was leaning against the wall, laugh-crying. Suddenly, she stopped and looked over our shoulders.  
And gulped.  
The doorway was filled by a tall man who was, I thankfully noted, wearing clothes. A pair of jeans in any case and presumably something on top, but I couldn't bring myself to look above his knees. He was barefoot and he had a scar on one of his feet, like a Y.  
 _From an arrow_ , I suddenly thought.  
What a weird assumption. But some vampires are old enough to have lived at a time when getting shot in the foot by an arrow was not an uncommon occurrence. Right?

"Ladies," said a deep voice, an amused voice, and the man stepped into the room, holding the door open for us as we passed. I scuttled inside and as I did, I smelled the skin of his bare arms, a raw, salty smell like the Atlantic. With some underlying sweet scent, maybe of honey and apples. I could feel him bend his head towards mine, so I sped by before he could say anything. I kept my eyes on the patterned carpet and went over to the radiator, while Petra waylaid him at the door. The room was warm and clammy; I longed to throw open a window and let some of the cold air in and I wondered why the vampire hadn't done so. I looked at him slyly while he was talking to Petra – she was apologising for the hiccup, but he kept glancing in my direction and I kept ducking my head to avoid any eye contact. He was tall enough to look down even on her; he had a crooked nose and when he smiled, a bit of an overbite. He looked tired, there were bags under his eyes, and he stood with a slight stoop, like a man too used to bending to speak to normal-sized beings. Perhaps he hadn't had a good day's rest in a while, I thought, unpacking the little bag that held my few tools. Some of the vampires my father worked with tended to look older when they hadn't fed on human blood for a while. I shuddered. Ugh.

The valve on the radiator was missing. I looked around – on the carpet, under the armchair, even under the wardrobe. Then I spotted it on his bed, as though he'd tossed it there.  
"Did that come off?" I asked him, pointing at it. "The valve, the thermostat thingie?"  
He grinned at me. "This thingie?" he said teasingly, holding it aloft.  
"Yes, that thingie." I was not amused.  
"It did, Maggie," he said, his voice a caress. "It just fell – off."  
"I'm afraid I can't fix that," I said sharply. "It looks like it's been yanked off. It's broken."  
I glared at him. "We can organise another room for you," I continued, my tone frosty, "but we'll have to tape bin bags over the window to keep the light out. The Blue Room?" I asked, turning to Petra, "it has heavy curtains, doesn't it?"  
"We can do that, Mr Magnusson," she said. "We'll do that straight away. Just give us ten minutes. Come on, Maggie."  
"And don't touch the bloody radiator this time," I snapped. I normally wouldn't have dreamt of speaking to a guest that way, but this buffoon was grinning at me as though it were all a joke. I didn't doubt for a second that he'd broken the heating with his clumsy shovel-like hands.

"Maggie should have another look at it," the vampire said, staring at Petra. His voice was soft, hypnotic.  
I gasped in indignation. He was glamouring her!  
"Mr ... Mr..." I called. He ignored me.  
Damn it, what was his name?  
"Mr _Magnusson_!" I cried. "Leave her alone!"  
He looked over at me quizzically. Then he did something odd: he winked at me.  
"I just want Maggie to take another look at it," he said to Petra. "Alone. No harm will come to her, I promise."  
Petra nodded at me and glided out of the room without a backward glance. I picked up a wrench and held it up fiercely.  
"I'm wearing silver," I threatened. "And I _will_ use this on you as well."  
He laughed.  
"Magdalena," he said in that same silky tone.  
The hairs on my arms stood up.  
"How do you know my name?" I hissed viciously, shocked.  
He took a step or two towards me, his arms outstretched. I backed away, brushing against the hot radiator, which made me jump.  
"Seriously," I repeated, panicked. "Do we know each other? How do you know my name?"

The vampire stared a me. "The tall woman mentioned it when I checked in," he said. "Unless you think we've met before?"

Yeah, that was hardly likely. I'd met few vampires in my day but I'd certainly remember this big gangly one with the smug grin. "We've never met," I said firmly. "Ever."

He stopped just in front of me. My nose was on a level with his ribcage and I could smell the sea from his t-shirt. He didn't move, just stood there like a statue for unending seconds, while my sweaty palms gripped the wrench. Finally, slowly, I raised my head and looked up at him. He was frowning at me, his brow furrowed. I used the opportunity to place one end of the wrench on his chest and gingerly push him away. He allowed himself to be pushed.  
"Magdalena," he said in that same tone he'd used on Petra.  
"I can't be glamoured," I snapped. "Step back."  
" _Magdalena_ ," he crooned again.  
"Are you fucking _deaf_?" I cried. "I can't be glamoured! Step the fuck back or I'll hit you with this wrench!"

He stepped back with alacrity, his face still creased in a frown.  
"You can't be glamoured," he said, not taking his eyes off me. "I see."  
Then a slow smile crossed his face and he bowed his head in acceptance.  
"I apologise most sincerely," he said. "My misunderstanding. Please forgive me. I will not trouble you again, you have my word."  
The word of a vampire? _Huh_. I almost snorted out loud.  
"Petra'll probably have the other room ready for you," I said coldly. "It's at the end of the corridor; you can move your things down there now. Keep your clothes on and your hands off the thermostat, please."  
"As you wish," he said in the same acquiescing tone. I wriggled past him and out into the corridor, where Imelda was waiting.  
"Are you alright?" she whispered. "Petra just walked past me without saying a word. She's just come back up the stairs with a roll of bin bags and packing tape. Is it still broken?"  
"He broke it on purpose," I hissed. "He was trying to lure one of us in for a feed. Whatever you do, don't make eye contact with him. He's a sneaky fucker."  
The door opened and the tall vampire came out. Imelda and I looked at the ground, like two mediaeval serving wenches when the lord of the manor walked by. I thought I heard a low chuckle but I didn't look up to check.

I didn't stay around to make sure he was comfortable in his new room. I went back upstairs to mine, locked the door and jammed a chair under the handle. Then I rooted through the drawer beside my bed and put on the collection of silver rings and thimbles I hadn't needed for so long. I slept badly, startling at every creak and rattle, sitting up in bed, ready to punch a vampire in the face with my silver-clad fingers. But he stayed away.

The next day, Imelda and I pressed our ears up against the door of The Blue Room but there was no sound from within. We weren't sure if the room was entirely light-tight, but we established that there was no hissing or sizzling from within and we took that as a good sign.  
"What does it sound like when they burn up?" she asked. "I imagine it'd be like sausages in a pan. What do you think?"  
"Probably," I agreed.  
We listened again. Silence. So he was still alive.  
Or dead.  
Or undead.  
Whatever. Creepy fucker.  
That evening I hid upstairs as soon as the sun went down, my face pressed to the tiny attic window of my room. I saw him leave the house, his long, loping gait recognisable in the dim light of the garden lamps. I shrank back out of sight as he opened his car, looking up at the house. There was no way he could see me, I reasoned, but better safe than sorry.  
"You need to reconsider offering a vampire room," I said to Petra and Imelda when I went downstairs. I had waited till I heard the faint sound of Mr Magnusson's wheels grinding on the gravel, then scampered downstairs to pour myself a stiff whiskey.  
"We might have to rethink it," Petra nodded. "I mean, most of them have been very nice but that one was just weird."  
I shuddered.  
Weird was an understatement.  
Vampires? Ugh.

 _Thank you for your comments and contributions. They're always food for thought ..._


	8. Chapter 8

The encounter with the weird vampire made me redouble my efforts to find a new job. Redoubling my efforts sadly only meant double the rejections, though: people in my field tend to work in their dusty offices or libraries or museums till they're rolled out of there in a state of near-mummification, much like some of the artefacts they've lovingly tended for years. In other words, if you were lucky enough to find a job like the one I had at the National Museum in Dublin, you stayed there till you found something just as good, or better, by networking with colleagues at conferences and academic visits or by submitting research papers to enhance your profile. I'd left my job three years previously and my former boss had retired in the meantime; when I discreetly made enquiries among my ex-colleagues, I was equally discreetly – and a tad regretfully – informed that there would be no job openings in the foreseeable future. My department had been squeezed by government cutbacks and no one was hiring. My time in Louisiana had been a step away from my profession and my employment prospects had only been made worse by a year and a half spent renovating an old house in the middle of nowhere. I would have to start again, at the bottom, and crawl my way back to where I'd been when I left Dublin to work for Queen Catherine.

The realisation was sickening.

And maybe that was why I didn't hang up immediately when I got a phone call at 7 a.m. from a Ms Bowford in New Orleans.  
"Maggie Kennick?" she said into the phone. "Magdalena Kennick?"  
"Yes? What? Sorry?" I said, sitting bolt upright in bed, squinting at the luminous dials of my watch in the darkness.  
"Ah'm calling from the offices of the Vampire King of Louisiana," she said in that slow southern drawl. The kind of voice that always sounds slightly sardonic or slightly amused. "I was wondering if you would be willing to return to Louisiana to take up your old job again? The situation has just become vacant and Mr Montgomery has praised you highly."  
"No, thank you," I said with alacrity. "I very much appreciate the offer but I am really keen to return to the curatorial profession."  
I don't know why I was so formal. Probably because I hadn't had my breakfast yet.  
"Curatorial?" she said, sounding out the five syllables as though it were the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. "I see. So you have no interest in returning to your job as ..."  
I heard the shuffling of papers,  
"... as the court of Louisiana's vampire-human liaison officer?"  
"No thank you," I said. And added, "Ma'am," just in case.  
"I see," she said. "Well, then, that's – "  
And then she put her hand over the mouthpiece.  
"Miz Kennick?" she said suddenly, "Can I put you on hold for a moment? Just a teeny-weeny moment?"  
"Sure –" I started to say but my ear was filled with the sound of a particularly tragic rendition of Greensleeves.

I waited, plucking lint off the duvet cover, jumping a little when Ms Bowford's voice suddenly said,  
"Miz Kennick?"  
"Yes?"  
"I'm afraid I haven't been entirely honest with you. The King of Louisiana is spearheading a very important project that will coincide with the opening of the Department of Vampire Studies at the University of Louisiana in New Orleans next fall. This is the kind of thing that the entire world will be watching. Very prestigious. "  
"What is it?" I asked, my curiosity piqued. "What's he planning?"  
Ms Bowford hesitated. "I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to reveal details," she said. "We had hoped that we could lure you back to Louisiana without saying too much, knowing how well-connected you are to the vampire community in Dublin. You see, this is a multi-million dollar project to ... to preserve the vampire legacy in New Orleans. We're thinking a major cultural installation, a dedicated museum, a... a festival to celebrate vampirology."  
Oh, my.  
"But I've said too much," she said quickly. "I hope I can count on your discretion. We obviously want the initial planning stage to remain a secret. We know Prague is planning something for 2025 and we don't need them stealing our ideas."  
I thought it over, my brain racing, and she must have taken my silence as hesitation.

"We would be willing to have you over here for a month initially, on a trial basis. For a consultancy fee," she said quickly. "Name your price, Miz Kennick."  
I hesitated, still not sure whether this was a joke but tempted by the possibilities on offer. If this really was going to happen, it would be a first worldwide. A dedicated vampire museum, the opportunity to work on a team to design and implement new ideas, the chance to be in on the project from the very start – I was almost jittery with excitement. It was an opportunity so rare, I could hardly believe I was being afforded it.  
Ms Bowford cleared her throat discreetly. "Your fee?" she said again.  
I named a ridiculous price and smacked the heel of my hand against my forehead as soon as the figure left my mouth. What had gotten into me?  
"Fine," she said smoothly. "That sounds reasonable."  
My jaw dropped.  
"Are you free to come to Louisiana immediately?" she asked.  
"I have things to finish up here," I stuttered. "Maybe the end of the month?"  
"Two weeks from now? Fine," she said briskly. "My people will organise your flights, your contracts and so on. Mr Montgomery will be delighted to hear that you're returning."  
"Thank you," I said. "Thank you so much."  
"There is one thing, though," she said. "You may not tell anyone where you're going. Not anyone. Not your friends and most certainly not your family. If you do, you can consider this offer void."  
"Why not?" I asked, astonished.  
"Because, Ms Kennick, you are the daughter of the human that has the Empress' ear. If she gets wind of this project, you can be sure she will step up any plans for something similar in her territory. Like I said, this is a highly prestigious project and the kingdom that manages to pull it off first will be the benchmark for any others that follow. We want to set that benchmark."  
I knew what she meant. Prague was working on a vampire cultural centre; Romania was battling infrastructure issues in Transylvania; Dublin was toying with the idea of a vampire museum but hampered by Empress Moya's indecisiveness. If they heard of something happening in New Orleans, all efforts would shift into top gear to get their projects finished first.  
"I understand," I said. "I agree. You have my word. I'll tell my family I've been offered a consultancy contract in New York or something."  
"Good," she said coolly. "See you then."  
Before she put down the phone, I said, "May I have your name again, please? Bowford?"  
"Pamela de Beaufort," she said and this time she definitely sounded amused. I wondered if we'd met when I was working in Louisiana? The name didn't ring a bell, so I timidly asked,  
"Do we know each other?"  
She let out a peal of laughter.  
"Apparently not," she replied.  
And I could still hear her laughing as she hung up the phone.


	9. Chapter 9

The palace built by Queen Catherine, former Queen of Louisiana, was a mixture of luxury hotel and gothic castle, with a slight whiff of prison thrown in. Guards patrolled outside its whimsical towers, ready to discreetly shoot anyone with nefarious intentions, human or vampire alike. The staff were in a constant state of alert; anyone who wished to spend the night in one of the sumptuous suites had to be able to ignore the fact that there was very probably a man with a machine gun standing underneath their window. I nodded at one of these machine-gun-toting men as I walked up to the entrance and he saluted me as I passed, as though we knew each other. I smiled back at him and said hello. He beamed at me in return, doffing his helmet.  
I had really missed the southern friendliness.

The palace was, essentially, a large rectangle with a huge courtyard inside, with both indoor and outdoor tennis courts and a large swimming pool at the back. It was situated on the edge of the city and the land it was built on alone must have cost several fortunes. I wasn't entirely sure, but I thought I remembered someone telling me that the state of Louisiana was broke. You would never suspect it when you crossed the large lobby to the front desk, your feet sinking into the dark red carpet below. The day receptionists smilingly checked me in and one of them led me to my room on the top floor. To my surprise, I discovered that it wasn't actually a room, but _rooms_ : a small self-contained apartment over one of the tennis courts. If I listened very carefully, I could hear the faint thud of balls, a strangely comforting sound.

"Ms de Beaufort thought you might be comfortable here," the receptionist said, studying me carefully. He smiled politely and waved a hand to show me my new place. I looked around. The apartment looked vaguely familiar and I realised I had probably been in it when I'd lived here before. Maybe I'd visited the previous occupant. Or occupants. It was a little big for me alone as there were two bedrooms, though one of them housed a large wooden desk and a big leather chair, obviously used as an office. It was a sunny room and its empty bookcases were begging to be filled. I dropped my bag in the doorway and sat down in the chair contentedly. Its previous user had had much longer legs than mine; I adjusted the height and swivelled around to face the receptionist, still waiting politely at the door.  
"This is fine," I said. "Thank you very much!"  
The receptionist bowed – taking the whole southern politeness thing a bit too far, I reckoned – and exited the little apartment backwards.

The whole place smelled of fresh paint and new furniture. I peeled the protective film off the new dishwasher and fridge in the brand-new kitchen and turned on the tap to let the water run in the shiny new sink for a few minutes. Then I tried to sleep in the new bed, whose mattress still smelled slightly of its plastic cover, waking only when my alarm rang at 10 p.m. I got dressed in my best Professional Clothes – I'd had to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe because I didn't think I could do much project management in paint-splattered jeans and hooded sweatshirts – and made my way to the conference room where the first team meeting was to be held.

I slinked shyly around the door, feeling that awkward first-day-of-school dread. A tall, thin woman with a wasp-like waist spotted me and stalked towards me.  
"Maggie," she said, stopping short.  
I recognised her voice.  
"Ms de Beaufort?" I said, my voice a little shaky.  
"Yes, that's right. Pamela Swynford de Beaufort at your service."  
She looked me up and down and I instantly felt inadequate. She was striking: her hair was perfectly coiffed, her outfit was clearly from a designer store – probably a French designer, it had that classic Chanel chic.  
"You're thin," she said, bizarrely. "We'll need to fatten you up, I see."  
My face must have shown my puzzlement.  
"You were more ... curvy when you worked here," she said.  
"So we _did_ meet before, then?" I asked.  
Her face twitched.  
"No, I just remember your photo," she said curtly, then she grasped my arm with her cold fingers and steered me into the middle of the room.  
"This is Magdalena Kennick," she said and it seemed to me like she was giving some of the people assembled the evil eye. I followed her gaze and saw a few familiar faces. I waved my fingers at them, relieved to see people I knew from my time here before. "You're with the museum team," she said, putting a hand on the small of my back to give me a gentle push in the direction of a table where a small group were sitting, the table already littered with notes and drawings.  
"You can get straight down to work," Ms de Beaufort said. "Catch her up, please."

The group was a mixture of vampires and humans and they immediately brought me up to speed. I sifted through the sketches and lists and listened to what they'd been discussing. Based on my phone call with Ms de Beaufort, I had somehow assumed that the project was much further along than it was - it really was at the very beginning, in its earliest stages. The group resumed the discussion my arrival had interrupted whileI looked at the rough figures someone had written down, the estimation for the start-up costs and the running costs for a high-profile museum. I almost felt a little dizzy when I counted the noughts. How on earth would they pay for it?

I made eye contact with the woman sitting next to me and said, "Have you seen this?"  
I pushed the piece of paper towards her, my finger under the sums.  
She gave me a flash of a startlingly lovely smile and pushed her beaded braids back off her shoulder.  
"This is a conservative estimate," she said in a low voice. The others at the table were engaged in an argument about the museum's main focus.  
"I thought Louisiana was broke?" I whispered.  
"This is coming from the king's private funds," she said. "Apparently."  
"Seriously?"  
" _Apparently_ ," she shrugged, looked around, then leaned in and said: "I gotta admit, the whole thing seems a little hinky to me. This here all just came together in the last week. They got the best of the best here – that's New Orleans' most expensive architect over there. And those guys? Social media experts, shit hot. In from New York. Those guys are from the top marketing company south of Washington DC. So I'm wondering if this is some kind of Fyre Festival fiasco in the making, you know?"  
"Fyre Festival?"  
"This young entrepreneur, he tried to organise a music festival in the Bahamas at a crazy luxurious resort. Like, a desert island. They hired the best talent to put it out there on social media but when all the guests actually arrived, they realised it was a huge scam. They weren't staying in fancy-ass tents, they got hurricane shelter with blow-up mattresses instead. The place was a construction site, you know what I'm sayin'?"  
"Wow," I exhaled.  
"The king wants to have this up and running in eighteen months," she said. "Ain't no way that's happening. They don't even have a site yet."  
"Wow," I said again. I shook my head. Eighteen months seemed pretty ambitious to me, too.  
"And what do you do?" I asked her.  
"I'm Nia," she said. "I'm in events management."  
"Are you with an agency?"  
"No, I work for the court," she said. "I heard you used to work here, too?"  
"I did. Did we ... did we work together?"  
"I don't think so. But I only started here last year."  
She smiled at me again. "Nice to meet you, Maggie."  
"It's nice to meet you, too," I whispered, hoping I'd found a friend.

The door opened and Mr Montgomery came in. He immediately spotted me and I waved enthusiastically, almost knocking over the cup of coffee on the table in front of me. The others gasped as I set it to rights, pushing papers out of the way of my flailing arms. He gave me a broad smile, then seemed to pull himself together.  
"Ladies and gentlemen," he intoned solemnly. "May I ask you to stand for his highness, the vampire king of Louisiana?"  
Everyone in the room stood up, even Ms de Beaufort, who managed to do so with an almost palpable air of _ennui_.  
Mr Montgomery yanked the door open and the king strode in.  
I gasped and jerked back, knocking over my coffee cup. Nia dived at the table and set it back upright, swiping the little puddle with a paper napkin. The king was engaged in conversation with the architect, who had scurried to his side the moment he'd entered the room, while everyone else sat down and resumed their conversations.  
"You okay?" she said. "You never seen him before? Big guy, isn't he? They say he was a Viking, like, a real-life genuine Viking. Crazy, eh?"  
I stared at him.  
"I've seen him before," I muttered grimly.  
The vampire king surveyed the room over the head of his architect and his eyes came to rest on mine. He studied me for a moment or two, and then inclined his head in greeting.  
 _John Magnusson, as I live and breathe,_ I thought crossly.  
I looked down at the table and mopped up my coffee, ignoring his eyes boring into the top of my head.  
Nia was right: this whole thing was hinky. Very hinky indeed.


	10. Chapter 10

It was a matter of time before I would be summoned to that crazy-ass John Magnusson aka Eric Northman, King of Louisiana. I spent the rest of the night trying to concentrate on the talk going on around me but I had a sick knot of dread in my stomach. At around 3 a.m. most of the humans, wan-faced and exhausted, took their leave. Nia said good night and I walked her to the door of the lobby, chatting about places we loved to eat in New Orleans. We swapped phone numbers and she gave me a quick hug before she left.

I turned around and almost bumped into Pamela de Beaufort.  
"Aww," she said. "Making friends?"  
"Yes," I mumbled. I smiled at her and pretended to stifle a yawn. In actual fact, my heart was pumping and the realisation that she could probably smell me, smell the cookies I'd eaten, the coffee I'd drunk, made it pump even harder.  
She looked at me with an expression of pity.  
"The king wants to see you," she said.  
"Now?" I moaned. "Really? I'm actually quite tired and a bit jet-lagged so -"  
"Chop, chop," she said, clapping her hands.  
I walked behind her, dragging my feet like a naughty child.  
"He won't bite, you know," she said, glancing down at me. "Not unless you want him to," she added with a wink.  
"I'll pass," I replied.  
She held the large wooden door open for me, the one that led to the private tract of the building, where the throne room and the court offices were located. I walked past her, nodding at the guards who all smiled at me broadly. I smiled back but Pamela clicked her tongue and their expressions became neutral, immobile, again. She walked past the throne room and stopped at the door that led to one of the offices.  
"In you go," she said.  
"I have a right to another human present," I said quickly. "I can ask for another human to be in the room, so that's what I want to do."  
Pamela bent her head so our eyes were level.  
"Don't try my patience, Maggie," she said. "What do you think Eric is going to do to you?"  
Eric?  
"The king is – " I began.  
"Pam," he said, swinging the door open. We both jumped.  
"Please come in, Ms Kennick," he said. "You may have a human present if you wish, but I assure you it is not necessary. We can leave the door open if you wish."  
At that moment, two vampires secretaries walked by with a stack of files in their arms. They looked curiously at the three of us, then scurried on, whispering.  
"Okay," I said reluctantly. He would hardly eviscerate me with his staff strolling by, would he?

He walked around his desk and sat down, motioning for me to do so too. He leaned back in his chair and stretched his long legs out, so the toes of one of his feet were almost touching mine. I pulled my legs away discreetly.  
"I am aware we started on the wrong foot," he began abruptly. "I apologise for my behaviour."  
"What were you doing in Ireland?" I shot back.  
"Hiking," he answered simply.  
" _Hiking_?"  
A hiking Viking? An absurd desire to giggle overcame me and I had to stare at my shoes to suppress it.  
"The Wild Atlantic Way," he replied smoothly. "It's beautiful. I really recommend it."  
I said nothing, just raised an eyebrow.  
"You don't think that our meeting was a coincidence?" he enquired.  
I said nothing; looked away.  
"You seriously think ... I ... what? Tracked you down?" he continued, his voice amused. "You made such an impression on me in your function as a ..." he paused for effect and then resumed, his lips twitching, " ... a _liaison officer_ that I simply had to find you and offer you a job?"  
He sounded like he was holding back laughter and put like that, it did sound a bit ridiculous. I blushed and cleared my throat.  
"No," I said. "But you did give us a false name. You can't expect me not to find that kind of weird."  
"Sometimes I need a bit of peace and quiet," he said, raising his palms in a shrug. "I'm entitled to that, too, aren't I? Even as the King of Louisiana?"  
"Yes," I said. "I suppose so."

We stared at each other for a couple of moments. His gaze was kindly, but he was looking at me the way a scientist might study an insect. Before he took a scalpel and dissected it.  
"I would like you to work as a kind of liaison officer on this project, too," he said. "I see you working in acquisitions, of course, but more importantly, I see you working with some of the local groups to facilitate the cooperation we are going to need from local government."  
"Why me?" I said.  
"Because no one will be able to resist that cute Irish accent," he grinned, leaning forward.  
"Hmmm." It wasn't a satisfying answer.  
"Look." He sat upright suddenly, smile gone, his face serious. "I know you don't think much of me based on our last encounter, but I am asking that we start over. Consider it an aberration, a deviation from my normal code of behaviour, for which I have no explanation. None that you will find logical anyway."

Northman stood up. "This is an important project and it's one I'm personally funding. If you're not prepared to be a part of it or if our previous meeting has impaired your ability to work for the Court of Louisiana, please feel free to consider your contract terminated without further ado."  
I thought it over quickly. He seemed serious enough, a very different vampire to the near-naked man that had tried in vain to lure innocent women into his room back in Ballygar. And I needed the job – boy, did I need this job. I really needed to get my foot back on the career ladder, even if it meant working with a radiator-wrecking Viking. Against my better judgement, I nodded my head slowly.  
"Okay," I said. "I think we could work together."  
He smiled at me.  
"Good," he said. "I am looking forward to it."  
His words made me shiver.  
"I'll go then?" I had intended to make it a statement, but it came out as a question, a quiver.  
"One more thing," he said, coming around to the front of the desk. "You are a carrier, aren't you?"  
"Yes," I said quietly.  
He sat down on the edge of the desk in front of me. I had a nice view of his crotch. I looked down at my hands and smoothed my trousers.  
"Do you belong to a vampire?" he asked in that same friendly scientist-with-an-insect tone.  
"No," I said, even more quietly. "But I'm one of the Five Families, so I don't need to belong to a vampire – "  
"In Europe," he finished. "But you're not in Europe now, Magdalena. So I'll claim you to make sure no other vampire gets any ideas."  
"No, thank you," I said with alacrity. I knew what being claimed by a vampire meant and I didn't fancy it one bit.  
"It's a courtesy," he said mildly. "You will be known as my guest, not my property. I wouldn't do anything ... untoward."  
I stifled a snort. The first time I'd met this man he had been very – well, toward.  
"As long as _you_ don't get any ideas," I said.  
"No ideas," he promised.  
He smiled at me, then leaned forward to look deep in my eyes. I squirmed away, looking over his shoulder, trying to avoid having him in my body-space.  
"If you're trying to glamour me, it doesn't work," I said to his shoulder.  
Northman leaned back, folded his hands over his broad chest.  
"I know," he said. "You told me already. And no vampire has ever managed to glamour you?"  
"No. Never."  
"Never?"  
 _What the fuck?_ I thought.  
"Never," I growled.  
"Interesting," he said and looked at me with the same expression Ms de Beaufort had had: curiosity tinged with pity. That was it: pity.  
"Sleep well, Ms Kennick," he said, snapping me out of my thoughts. "You will have a busy night tomorrow. I hope you will be well rested by the time twilight comes."

He went back behind the desk and nodded at the door. I attempted a wobbly curtsy and left.


	11. Chapter 11

It didn't take me long to figure out that something was off. It took me all of 24 hours, to be honest, but a few days longer to put my finger on it exactly. The fact that I was chaperoned (shadowed) by Pam or, more pleasantly, Mr Montgomery from the moment I left my room at dusk to the moment I was deposited there before dawn should have been warning enough.

But, no. Added to that was the fact that the people I used to work with wouldn't speak to me, and in some cases, wouldn't even meet my eye. I went down to the accounting department during one of the middle-of-the-night coffee/blood breaks to see if any of the women I used to know were still there. They gulped – visibly gulped – when they saw me come in the door, tight smiles and anxious, shifty glances. I tried to make small talk, enquire about progeny, children and spouses, but instead they kept looking over my shoulder at the doorway. And, lo and behold, within minutes, Pamela arrived like a fury, tut-tutting, and steered me off back upstairs to the conference room.

After two nights of constant supervision, I began to look for ways to wriggle out of their supervision, but it was hard. There was always a vampire nearby, pretending to examine their nails or dust a skirting board. You know, just hanging around. If I left the room to, say, use a restroom, I quickly found I had an undead escort who hung around outside the door and discreetly walked me back to the conference room. Just before dawn I was expected to report a summary of the night's discussions to the King. The people I worked with – the architects, the historians, and the people in acquisitions or on the city council – were courteously cautious towards me and I often noticed them shushing each other when I approached. It was probably because they saw me as a bit of a snitch: at the end of every night, I left with Pam and was escorted to the King's office, where we sat together and looked over the notes I'd taken from whatever work-group I'd sat in on that night. He liked to turn up unexpectedly during the course of the night, but his arrival invariably caused a flutter of excitement or alarm, so he began to rely on me to bring him up to speed afterwards, as he tended to reduce the humans to quivering wrecks if he was feeling impatient or snappy. He was sharp as a tack, I discovered. He could grasp the essence of an issue faster than I could explain what the issue was, and his judgement, though often brutal in that cold, vampire way, was impeccably fair, just devoid of any touchy-feely ... humanity.

Northman always sat by my side, not touching me, and we pored over the documents on his desk, his long finger poking diagrams and charts, asking questions. He always left the door open, he was always faultlessly polite. After a couple of nights, I began to relax a little in his company as our conversations drifted away from museum plans to the historical events we were both interested in. On the third night I got caught up in an argument with him about Charlemagne, rising to the bait because he was insisting that the emperor had not fought the Muslim Caliphate in Spain. I took up the fight, mostly because he was wrong. And he wouldn't admit it.  
"I'll Google it," I said, searching my pockets for my phone.  
"Don't bother," he said. "I'm telling you, I _know_."  
"You're not telling me," I snapped, "you're mansplaining history to me and I freaking know my history, your majesty."  
He had spun his chair so we were no longer sitting side-by-side, but facing each other, our knees touching. I was so agitated, I could barely type in the code to unlock my phone, outraged that my history knowledge was being challenged. The King had an arrogant smirk on his face, one that tipped over into a wide grin as I cursed under my breath and angrily tapped the code in again.  
"Mansplaining?" he said, leaning closer to look at my phone.  
"And manspreading," I snapped, pushing his knees away.  
He laughed out loud. "Oh, _Magdalena_ ," he said in funny tone. A familiar manner. I bent my head over my phone and clicked on my Wikipedia app.  
"Look," I said triumphantly, shoving the phone in his face.  
He glanced at the entry for the Holy Roman Emperor and shrugged dismissively.  
"It's wrong. And I would know," he said. "I was his contemporary, after all."  
"You weren't," I shot back. "You hadn't even been born when he died. Look, year of death: 814."

Then he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.  
"You're right," he said. "I hadn't even been born when he died. As you know."  
He just kept looking at me, making me feel flustered. I gathered up my notes and shoved them back into my folder.  
"See you tomorrow night," I said briskly and gave the little wobble that was as close as I could get to a curtsey. He nodded his head, still looking at me thoughtfully. I left the room and Mr Montgomery half-walked, half-ran to keep up with me.  
"Would you tell me if something weird were going on?" I asked him bluntly.  
"Oh... Oh my," he said, on an expiring breath. "What kind of something weird?"  
He gnawed his lower lip as he held a door open for me.  
"I don't know, like something weird with the king," I said, exasperated. "He behaves weirdly towards me, I can't put my finger on it. Sometimes he's very cool and professional; other times, he's kind of ... familiar. It gives me the creeps."  
We took the wide stairs that led up to the upper floors. Mr Montgomery couldn't answer me because he had to nod and greet every member of staff we passed. It seemed to me as though he were deliberately going out of his way to say hello to every single soul, living and undead, rather than answer me directly.

I waited till we took the turn off for the staff quarters and then said, "Well?"  
He opened and closed his mouth, then said, "His majesty is quite odd in his ways, it is true."  
"So it's not just me, then?"  
"No, Ms Kennick. I think it might be safe to say that King Eric is weird to everyone."  
We stopped at my door. The previous two nights Mr Montgomery had come in for a glass of True Blood and we'd chatted about the people we both knew, plays he'd been to see in New Orleans, a musical we'd gone to see together when I'd lived there – harmless stuff. But this dawn, he looked a little anxious and declined.  
"Have a pleasant sleep, Ms Kennick," he said and opened the door for me in his courteous way.

I went inside and thought about what I could do. I was exhausted, so I made myself a pot of coffee and sat down to drink it while I came up with a plan. I knew that the day staff met briefly with the night staff just before dawn for the daily handover, so there would be a short window when everyone would be preoccupied. I didn't know whether I'd had someone hanging around outside my room while I'd been sleeping during the day, but I thought it safe to assume I did. I checked out the window and saw the sky was beginning to turn that telltale indigo light of the pre-dawn, so I opened the door and peeked out. The corridor was empty. I tiptoed down towards the back stairs, the one that led to the kitchens, pressing myself against the wall like a spy in an old black and white movie. When I got to the bottom of the steps, I hesitated, kicking myself for not staying to drink the rest of my coffee and think it through. I saw a sign for the stairs that led down to the basement level and wracked my brains, trying to figure out what was down there.

The question was answered by the vampire who came up the stairs as I paused on its threshold.  
"Hey, there, Miz Kennick," he said pleasantly. "Mercy me, I heard you were back but I didn't think I'd believe it till I seen it with my own eyes."  
"Yes, I'm back ... Chester," I said, with a surreptitious glance at his name tag.  
"'Course, no one tells me anything 'cause I just work down in storage but I knew you'd be wantin' all your stuff at some point, right? That why you comin' down to me?"  
My stuff? I had stuff?  
"That's right," I said, smiling at him.  
"You better come quick, then, I's just about to go to ground."  
We went down the stairs at a brisk pace.  
"Doesn't anyone work down here during the day?" I asked.  
"The King tryin' to rein in spending, they say, so the day guy got cut. Now they gotta a guy come in at lunchtime, he does it till I take over. Ain't the busiest part of the palace early morning, you know?"  
I nodded. Chester took a bunch of keys off his belt and opened a metal door. Inside was a large room, as big as a basketball court, lined with shelves. The place was lit by bare bulbs and the walls were naked concrete. It reminded me of the warehouse in _The Raiders of the Lost Ark_ and in a flight of fancy, wondered if some vampire had stowed the Ark of the Covenant down here, wedged in between cardboard boxes and wooden crated. He led me down one aisle and pulled out two large plastic see-through boxes with KENNICK on them. One was marked 'Clothes, etc' and the other 'Misc. Pers.'  
"There're a few more back here – you want me to get them?"  
"No, it's okay," I said, trying to peer at the things in the 'Misc. Pers.' box. "I only really need this one right now."  
"You want that I carry that up to your apartment? You still in your ol' apartment?"  
"My old apartment?"  
"The one you used to live in?"  
I stared at him. One moment, two. Then I blinked.  
"Um, yes, yes, I guess I am. You don't need to carry it, thank you. It's quite light."  
I gave it a little shake to demonstrate its weight and bits of paper and books slid around inside.

He walked me back up the stairs and headed off in the other direction to, presumably, his coffin. I darted back up the stairs like a hare, the box rattling as I ran. I fumbled with my keys, opened the apartment door and went inside, tearing the box lid off so I could tip its contents on the floor. It was like the debris of a wreck – of an explosion, of a crash. The box was full of little slips of paper and Post-Its, like someone had ripped them off my fridge. In fact, they probably were from my fridge because a pile of magnets had found each other and clung together for dear life. In my handwriting there were reminders to buy milk, a doctor's appointment on May 14. In a familiarly unfamiliar handwriting there was a list of dates: _15 June Sweden England, 16 June N Ireland Korea_ and many more. On a hunch, I Googled _15 June Sweden England_ and discovered it was one of the opening matches of the previous soccer World Cup. So I'd shared my fridge with a soccer fan. The thought did not reassure me in any way.

I grabbed a diary and threw it open; the entries were sparse, more like a record of meetings and important dates. _Theatre with CM_ – Charles Montgomery, that was easy. Two days highlighted in yellow with _New York with Pam!_ scrawled across them, my apparent joy at being with Pamela de Beaufort evident in my excessive exclamation marks. And all the way through: _Date Night. Dinner with E. E & P drinks. Date Night. Cinema with E.  
_Who was E?  
Oh, come on. I knew who E was. Didn't I? I screwed my eyes shut, because I could only think of one person whose name started with E. And when I opened them again, my fingers found the edge of a photograph and I extracted it, as though it were hot to the touch. In the photo I was sitting on a black sofa next to the King of Louisiana, whose face was turned away to talk to someone behind us. It must have been some kind of party; the picture was a snapshot, I had probably just happened to glance up at the moment the photographer had pressed the button. The king's arm was draped across my shoulders in a way that indicated that it had rested there a thousand times and I was sitting close enough to him to be slightly lopsided, pulled in close to him by the sinking of the cushions beneath his greater weight.  
I hissed and dropped it, wiping my fingers on my shirt.

xxx

"Wakey-wakey," Pamela said, rapping on my door. I opened it.  
"I am awake," I said coolly. "Please come in."  
"You need to put your stamp on this place," she said, looking around. "Scandinavian minimalist chic is so not you."  
"Is it not?" My voice was even, cool, but she didn't catch it.  
"Oh, please," she said. "Minimalist? I don't think so."  
"More like Eric's style, isn't it? I suppose he'd love it."  
"He'd – " then she stopped, suspicious. "Yes, I'm sure he would," she conceded. "Are you ready to go?"  
I indicated that she should follow me and led her into the kitchen, to the fridge, which was festooned with all of the bits and pieces I'd found in the box. There was a stack of books and folders on the table.  
"What am I supposed to be looking at?" she said. Then, in a low voice, "Oh, I see."  
In the centre of the fridge was the photo of the king and me. I tapped it.  
"What's this?" I asked.  
"Maggie," she said, "I'm sorry but Eric told me not to tell you. He warned everyone to keep away from you, he glamoured as many of the human staff as possible. He wanted you to, you know, find out organically."  
"Organically?"  
"Yes, bit by bit, gradually recover your memories and ... and, actually, I don't know what he thought would happen next."  
"So I've been glamoured, then," I concluded glumly.  
"Yes," she said apologetically.  
"By whom? You? That other dickhead?"  
"It wasn't me and it wasn't ..." she was tempted, I could see, but she caught herself and said, "it wasn't Eric. He found you like this in Ireland – he thinks it was the Empress, he just doesn't know how. Or why."  
"Did he come to get me because ... because he needed me for this job?" I asked, my voice small, hopeful. Surely he wanted me for my professional expertise?

Pamela threw back her head and snorted.  
"Oh, please," she said scornfully. "He just made this project up to lure you back."  
"But he's hired ... he's hired a dozen people. He's got guys out scouting for sites, for a location. He's got a marketing team working on a viral campaign, or whatever they call it."  
"Yeah, no, all a sham," she said cheerfully. "I mean, _they_ all think it's real, they're being paid on a consultancy basis for this month, but they'll all be fired now you've found out. I just don't think he figured you'd do it quite this quickly, though – he had counted on, like, a week or ten days. All the better, though – much cheaper in the long run."  
"Then he's an idiot," I snapped. "What did he think was going to happen? The place is full of people who used to know me and knew the two of us were, apparently, together."  
"You nearly got married, actually," Pam said.  
"Fuck off," I shot back, scornfully.  
"You really did," she said.  
I shook my head in disbelief. I doubt that any vampire could glamour away a memory as monumental as that. My eyes wandered over to the fridge and I looked at the king's profile, his long arms, long fingers, his legs spread casually against mine. I had apparently once known him. In the Biblical manner. _Ew_. I felt a blush pool in my cheeks just thinking about it.

I yanked the photo off the fridge and crushed it into a ball.  
"I'm sorry, Maggie," Pam said again. "And believe me, I was against this from the start. It's a ridiculous charade. But at least it was from his own bank account and not the kingdom of Louisiana's, right?"  
That gave me an idea.  
"Right," I said. I grabbed my folder and pens and said, "We'd better get going, the others will be waiting for us."  
Pamela chuckled. "You're – you think you're going to work?" she said, slightly confused.  
"I presume the king thought that I'd find out and stomp into his office, looking for an explanation. 'Oh, the scales have been lifted from my eyes!' or some such shit," I growled. "Fling myself at him. Fuck that. I have a contract for the month and I'm staying for the month. And if the others have signed a contract, too, then so are they. We're going to continue as though nothing had happened because what he's planning to do is a good idea," I said to Pam. "The project has merit and this stuff we're doing now? It's like a viability study. So we're going to keep going till the end of the month and if the project is viable, I'm going to push to have the museum built."  
"Are you serious?"  
"Deadly serious," I said. "And I'm going to make sure he pays for every single penny of it."


	12. Chapter 12

"... So we have two official options: this place is central but we're restricted by the finite amount of space available. Location-wise, it's a dream: right on the tourist trail, close to a heap of hotels, but it's going to cost an arm and a leg. Whereas the other place has everything we need and it's cheap, to boot."  
"Cheap?" Eric said, peering at me. I kept my head down, pretending to study the map of New Orleans and its environs.  
"Relatively," I said, glancing up briefly. "But it has virtually no infrastructure and the site is prone to flooding. So there's that."  
I shrugged and shuffled some papers.  
"They're the two official options?" he asked. "What's the third, the unofficial option?"  
"Demolish the east wing," I said with alacrity. "Rebuild, take in some of the tennis courts. Incorporate the restaurant into the museum complex; it's too big and it's not making money. Not enough humans are willing to trek out here for a bloody steak and an off-key rendition of 'Midnight Train to Georgia', strangely enough."  
"We haven't even finished paying for the damn place and you want to knock it down?" he growled.  
I raised my eyes to meet his.  
"Look at the numbers," I said. "We have the infrastructure; we have a lot of key services in place. We even have a hotel on site, for crying out loud. We don't have to start from scratch."  
He glared at me and picked up one of the papers with a list of figures and ran his finger down it.  
I shrugged again. "It's just a suggestion," I said. "At the end of the day it's your money. Spend it whatever way you like, your majesty."  
He put the paper down and nodded thoughtfully.  
"Food for thought," I said with a fake cheery smile. I picked up my bag, my folder. "We're not meeting tomorrow," I informed him. "A lot of the humans won't work on Sunday so we're taking a night off. See you Monday."

I stood up to leave and, quick as a flash, without looking up, his hand shot out and his fingers circled my wrist like a bangle.  
I glanced over at the open door, but the corridor was empty.  
"Sit," he said quietly. I pulled but we wouldn't release me.  
"Sit," Eric repeated. "Please."  
I sat and he let go of my wrist.  
"May I close the door?" he enquired courteously.  
"I'd rather you didn't."  
"I'm going to anyway," he said. "I was just being polite."  
He sauntered over to the door and shut it with a flick of a finger before sauntering back to sit opposite me. He grabbed my chair and yanked it so we were once again sitting face to face, knee to knee.  
"Pam says you know," he said.  
"Yes."  
"And?"  
"And what?"  
He stared at me.  
"What does this change?" he asked, as though I were a halfwit.  
"Nothing," I replied in the same insolent tone. "Even though I'm sure what we had was ... _lovely_ – " I infused as much scorn as I could into that one little word "- it doesn't matter any more. I don't have any feelings for you and we seem to be able to work together, so I don't see what the problem is."  
"And it doesn't bother you?" he asked. "Having been glamoured?"  
"Of course it does," I snapped. "I feel like an idiot."  
Eric looked at me, his face a little sad.  
"You promise you didn't do it?" I said.  
My voice rose in a shaky squeak. I suddenly felt vulnerable, like Northman somehow knew more about me that I knew about myself. I had been on a high of anger and indignation all night, but now embarrassment was setting in – all the people who knew I'd been glamoured, all pitying me and feeling sorry for my ignorance.  
He shook his head. "I promise I didn't," he said. " _Jag svär._ "  
And I believed him.  
"Pam said you made this all up," I said, "the whole project. Just to get me back."  
I laughed, a laugh that sounded fake even to my ears. "Eh... thanks for that. Gary Kennedy once shoplifted a bar of crunchy nut chocolate for me, which I thought was very romantic when I was fourteen. This certainly beats that – in terms of effort, anyway."

Eric grinned and opened his mouth to reply but I cut in: "But I think you should keep going. I mean, I know you didn't plan to carry through with this, but you should reconsider. A lot of the people involved really think this has the potential to be a success, but you need to get more involved – like, actually start attending meetings and stuff. But not be a dick about it. You act like a real shit to minimise your interaction with other vampires and humans, but you don't have to be like that. You can be a nice person when you try."  
It was a long speech and I stared him down, defiantly. He was doing that thing again where he was studying me, wordlessly, his face unreadable. Suddenly, he leaned forward and laid a hand on my cheek for a second. His skin was icy but his touch felt like a burn. I started back and his hand dropped.  
"Very well," he said formally.  
I stood up again and so did he. He walked over to the door and held it open for me.  
"Is there anything else I should know?" I said, pausing at the threshold. "Anything else I can't remember?"  
He looked down the corridor, over my shoulder, before glancing down at me.  
"No," he said.  
"You're lying."  
He smiled. "There's nothing else you should know. That's the truth. Goodnight, Ms Kennick."  
As if by magic, Pamela de Beaufort threw open the door at the end of the corridor.  
"Time for bed!" she trilled. "Say goodnight to daddy, Maggie."  
I didn't bother. I walked off, annoyed by his lie.

x x x

I set my alarm again and crept down the silent halls, keeping my ears open for humans or vampires approaching. I didn't know where I was going but the more I roamed, the more I remembered, the more I got my bearings. Things were coming back to me – small stuff like the names of some of the members of staff I'd had dealings with, the location of some of the places I'd had cause to visit. Sneaking on my tiptoes, I passed the kitchens – empty except for the cleaning staff – and the store rooms, avoided the staff offices and the meeting room where I knew the people from the day and night staff would be discussing the handover. I slipped down the stairs that I'd been down the previous day; if I remembered correctly, I could use the underground passageway that went under the courtyard and led to the staff staircase near the ballroom. From there I could get to Eric's office or maybe Pam's. I didn't plan on breaking and entering; I had a vague idea that I might be able to talk someone into letting me in. I could pretend I'd left something behind – some important piece of paper or something. The details could be worked out on the fly.

As I made my way along the concrete corridors, the lights flickering in that eerie way they do in horror films, I suddenly realised what was also under the courtyard: the prison. No, that wasn't right, not the prison – they didn't call it a prison. What was it? As I racked my brains for the appropriate term, I turned a corner and came face to face with a large double door, a metal door with a sign: SECURE UNIT.  
Aha. The secure unit.  
I pressed an ear against the door, as though I might be able to hear anything, and pushed it, as though it might open. Then I caught sight of a fingerprint reader at eye level and I paused, then placed my index finger on the pad, my breath caught in my throat. The screen went from red to green, and my name flashed on the little screen. As I suspected, I had probably had access to all areas of the palace and someone somewhere had forgotten to remove my data from some of the palace systems. I felt a surge of triumph, a ping of adrenalin, and quietly pushed the door open, glancing up at the CCTV camera as I did. _Oh well,_ I thought. _I might as well be in for a penny as in for a pound._ If I was going to be somewhere I shouldn't, then it should be somewhere I really, really shouldn't.

As soon as I entered, a burly security man rushed forward, but his face broke into a smile when he saw me.  
"Welcome back, Ms Kennick - ma'am!" he called.  
"Thank you," I said. "I, eh, I'm just getting back into the swing of things and assessing the current state of, eh, affairs."  
State of affairs? _Affairs_?  
But the guard didn't seem to notice my moronity.  
"I'm afraid the other guys are at the handover. We had some trouble here last night, so they're up reporting to the head of security. All quiet now, so need to worry."  
"What kind of trouble?" I asked.  
"That one prisoner," the guard said, nodding at me knowingly, "- you know who – well, he darned tried to escape. He held one of the vampire guards captive – he fashioned a stake from his dinner tray, the fucker. Excuse my French, ma'am. Damn well smashed that thing till he had a shard, about yea big."  
He placed two fingers about nine or ten inches apart.  
"We had to silver him pretty bad. Under normal circumstance we woulda shot to kill, but as you know, King Eric don't want him harmed. We gave him blood and he's been locked in a lead-lined coffin for a coupla days to teach him a lesson. So if you came down to see him, I'm afraid you'll have to come back down at the end of the week, depending on how forgiving the king is feeling."  
And he chuckled at the likelihood – or lack thereof – of the king's forgiveness.

"Who is this prisoner?"I asked without thinking. "Can I see the log?"  
All vampires kept prisoner by an authority were required by the new laws of the Charter to be registered in a log; it was supposed to prevent vampires mysteriously disappearing in captivity, as they were so often wont to do.  
The guard removed his cap and scratched his balding head.  
"I thought you ..." he said, his expression growing suddenly suspicious and I realised that there was no log. This prisoner did not exist.  
"Of course," I said smoothly, pretending to slap my forehead. "I must be still jetlagged. I was just curious to see which name he'd been registered under. I don't know if the name I knew him by is his actual name."  
"We call him Gunnar" the guard replied. "'Course, don't know if that's his real name but it's the one King Eric told us to use. He doesn't see to object to it. Not that he could anyway, of course, because - "

"Because he has no tongue," I finished. In my mind's I saw the vampire's face, the wild hair, the tongueless mouth. I knew him. I remembered him. But from where?  
"That's just it," the guard said.  
"I know him as Gunnar as well," I said. I thought quickly. "I'll just return at the end of the week," I said. "Or whenever King Eric says he can be released. Maybe you could give me a call when he's out of the coffin again?"  
"Sure thing, ma'am," he said, replacing the cap on his head. "You back in your old apartment? Still extension 445?"  
"That's right," I said.  
Back in my old apartment. Okay.  
"I'll do that," he promised and I thanked him, took my leave. I walked past the empty cells, glancing back at the one cell that contained a large coffin. It had a thick chain around it; no doubt a small fortune in silver. The security guard gave me a cheery wave and I let myself out, going back the way I came. The palace was coming alive and I passed a lot of people on my way back, but I simply nodded and smiled as though wandering around unaccompanied was the most natural thing in the world. And for all of the people I passed, seeing me walking around by myself, with the air of someone who knows where she is going, didn't seem to strike anyone as odd.

I let myself back into my flat and got ready for bed. I lay on back on the new mattress and tried to think where I knew that name, that vampire. But I fell asleep before I could remember.


	13. Chapter 13

I woke on Sunday afternoon feeling the vague thrill of excitement that you feel before a holiday. Not even the thought of the vampire locked in the coffin could mar my mood for too long. I bounced out of bed and stuck my face out the window to soak up the last bit of afternoon sun, then put on a load of laundry and sat down on a sunny spot on the living room carpet to sift through the rest of the _Misc. Pers_. box that I had taken out of storage.

A lot of it was nothing more than the banal debris of a humdrum life, all of the stuff that was swept off my desk, fridge, sideboard and dumped in a large box to be dealt at an indeterminate point in the future. I used to make a lot of lists before I'd been glamoured too, I established: lists of people to call, things to buy, emails to write. Eric? Not so much, but I found little notes in his handwriting, as well, and every time I did, my heart leapt a little in anticipation when I turned them over.  
 _M: record quarter finals, please  
_ More soccer. Sigh.  
 _I'm in the pool. E  
_ Which pool? A swimming pool? A whirlpool? An image of the vampire's wiry body flashed before me – the long legs, the long feet – and I blinked it away.  
And then something in Swedish, which I excitedly Googled, but it turned out to be a reminder to pick up dry-cleaning. I tossed it into the junk pile.

And then there were the postcards: more than a dozen of them in my handwriting, some posted from New York and Boston, two posted from New Orleans, most without a stamp, probably left on his desk. The messages were affectionate but cryptic, a secret language that we obviously understood but would mean nothing to anyone else who read the back of the card on its way to Eric. The problem was, I didn't understand it, either:  
 _The duck won. Admit it.  
_ What did the duck win? Which duck?  
I put them aside, not willing to throw them out. Yet. I picked up two photos that were stuck together with the remains of some sticky tape and gently prised them apart. One was of Eric at his investiture, a formal photo of him in a black suit with a cloak around his shoulders and a band of gold on his head. Something flashed back into my head: I remembered how he'd complained about the heavy cloak, the dumb crown, but I knew by the way he carried himself that he liked it. Mr Montgomery had insisted on the trappings of royalty and had made Eric commission a crown, but the design the king had chosen was Scandinavian: dull gold with intricate knotwork. And he wore it like he had been born to wear it. And instinctively I knew he had.

The other photo was taken at the same occasion but the photographer had caught us after the ceremony: I had my arms wrapped around his waist and he was leaning into me, his chin resting on the top of my head, as though I were holding him up. His eyes were closed, probably just taking a breather before we were pushed on to the next official duty, I was smiling at someone out of the photo. It was a picture of breathtaking intimacy and it took me aback. I stared at it for a couple of minutes, and then slowly put it down. I missed being the person in that picture. She looked happy.

A knock on the door startled me. When I opened it there was a vampire bellhop in uniform with a note in his hand.  
"From the king, ma'am," he said.  
I opened it and there was the same scratchy handwriting, but this time it wasn't about dry-cleaning or football:  
 _I would appreciate it if you would join me for a drink in my rooms  
_ he'd written.  
"Ma'am?" said the bellboy smilingly. "I can show you the way, Ms Kennick."  
"One moment," I replied and fetched a pen. Underneath Eric's note I wrote:  
 _Is this a summons?  
_ then folded it and handed it back to the young vampire in front of me.  
"Please return that to the king," I said.  
The bellhop looked momentarily confused.  
"Certainly," he replied with the same bright smile.  
I closed the door and went back to sorting. Ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door again.  
I opened it.  
"Thank you – I'm sorry, what's your name?" I asked as he handed over the note.  
"Tom," he answered.  
I flipped the note open. Eric had written:  
 _No, it is not. But I would appreciate it.  
_ I pulled my pen out of my pocket and Tom sighed discreetly.  
 _So is it supposed to be a date, then?  
_ I wrote and handed it back to him. He left again, his smile not quite so bright.

I was waiting beside the door when Tom returned. He handed me the note wordlessly.  
 _Only if you want it to be  
_ was the king's reply.  
 _What if I don't want it to be?  
_ I wrote and handed it back to Tom. No smiles this time. I shut the door and grinned. I wondered if Old Me, pre-glamoured me, liked to annoy Eric as much as I did. I could just imagine him grinding his teeth, not knowing whether to laugh or curse me.  
The phone rang and I picked it up.  
"Magdalena," Eric said. " _Please_."  
How he managed to make one word sound simultaneously imploring and vaguely threatening was beyond me, so I laughed and said, "Okay, okay, I'm on my way," before hanging up.

x

"This is the state room," I remarked, when he opened the door.  
"And this is not a date, I take it," he said, nodding at my jeans and t-shirt.  
"Speak for yourself."  
I indicated his attire: a grey long-sleeved t-shirt that sat tight across his torso and a pair of black jeans. His hair was tousled, as though he'd taken a shower and forgotten to comb it and he was barefoot again, his feet sinking into the deep pile of the luxurious carpet. I saw his arrow-scar and looked away. I glanced around, not even pretending to be discreet. I took in everything. Eric was neat – _habitually neat_ , I suddenly realised in that strange way I was getting used to: a kind of instinctive remembering, like a sixth sense.  
"We can get the best part of a thousand dollars a night for this suite," I said forthrightly. "You shouldn't be in it. The kingdom needs this money."  
He shook his head and deftly uncorked a bottle of red wine.  
"So you can't remember the fact that we nearly got married or the fact that we lived together for, oh, months on end – but you can remember the price of this suite? Glamouring is, indeed, an inexact science."  
He handed me a glass and then clinked his own against it. He was drinking blood in a red-wine glass: if you didn't look too closely, it looked like he was drinking a Merlot, too.

"Sit," he said and motioned to the sofa. I sat down in an armchair. He raised an eyebrow and sat opposite me. We sat in silence for a couple of minutes.  
"What do you remember?" he finally asked. I scrunched my eyes shut.  
"Everything. And nothing," I said.  
He looked at me enquiringly and I pointed at his foot.  
"Your sister Astrid gave you that scar. You rode her horse without her permission and she shot you in the foot when you got off. The arrow gave you an infection and you nearly died, so she stayed by your bedside for days and days till you recovered. She felt so bad you could ride her horse whenever you wanted to – you said the near-death experience was worth it."  
Eric grinned.  
"What was the horse's name?" he asked.  
"Árvakr," I replied. "It was the name of one of the horses who pulled some god's chariot, or something."  
"You remember that," he said wonderingly.  
"Someone once told me that glamouring always leaves holes," I said. "No matter how hard you try, you always forget something. Or someone."  
Like a vampire with no tongue. No context, no connection, but I knew we had met and I remembered his name.  
" _I_ said that," Eric replied, pleased. "Tell me something else."  
"Like what?" I asked, sipping the wine.  
"Something you can remember about me."  
"You want me to tell you something you once told me?" I laughed. "That's a bit pointless, isn't it?"  
"Indulge me," he said, leaning back on the sofa.  
"I can't remember anything else," I protested. "I just remembered that when I saw your scar."

Eric leaned forward again, fixing his eyes on me and patted the sofa beside him.  
"You might need to be closer to me," he said. "You've had my blood, you should feel a connection to me, you should be able to remember."  
"Haha," I said drily. "This is like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood – _'Come closer to the bed, little girl, granny can't hear you!'_ " I croaked in my best wolf-voice.  
Eric looked pained. "Do you want to start remembering or not?" he said impatiently.

I remembered the photo, my arms wrapped around his chest, his head resting on mine, and put my glass down on the side table, slid off the chair and sat down beside him. Wordlessly, he held out a hand and I took it.  
"Can you remember anything about ... about my maker?" he asked.  
"Godric!" I cried. "The boy with the blue tattoos!"  
It came back to me in a rush – Eric had told me a lot about Godric.  
"You and Godric came to America together," I said. "You left Europe in the 1840s and travelled to New York. Godric had to glamour the immigration official at the port, he didn't want to let him in when he caught sight of the tattoos. He thought that Godric was in some kind of a gang and they had enough problems with that kind of thing in New York at the time anyway."  
Eric smiled broadly and he squeezed my hand. Something, some heat, moved from his hand to mine.  
"And you _loved_ him," I said, unexpectedly fervently.  
Eric's smiled faded and he let go of my hand.  
"That is correct," he said formally. He looked away and put down his glass, his face suddenly sad.

Before I could stop myself, I reached out and touched his cold cheek with the back of my fingers, a tiny caress. He froze beneath my touch and his eyes darted to look at me, his body still completely motionless. I slowly lowered my hand.  
"I'm sorry." It was a whisper. "That was probably inappropriate," I added. "Sorry again."

He leaned forward and pushed me down, kissing my face, my mouth, my nose, my cheeks. It wasn't very elegant, he was basically kissing anything he could access while I struggled to grab hold of the back of the sofa to prevent myself from falling off.  
"Magdalena," he whispered and his lips found mine. He kissed me, prising my lips open with his tongue, his fingers wrapped in my hair.  
"Ehih," I mumbled. "Ehih!"  
His eyes were closed, a look of devotion on his face. I knew that look. I brought a hand to his face and cupped his cheek, his cold skin, the hard stubble.  
"Ehih!" I said and managed to turn my face away but he continued kissing my cheek instead. "Eric!"  
He pulled back.  
"It's like snogging an octopus," I complained. "I'm going to slide off the sofa and your big bony knee is bashing my leg."  
He sat up, pulling me upright as he did so, his face split in a broad grin.  
"But I _can_ kiss you? It's not 'inappropriate'?" he asked in his cheeky tone, making air quotes.  
I hesitated. It was inappropriate. But it was also familiar. Comforting. Pleasurable.  
And inevitable.

He threw the sofa cushions on the floor and stretched out on his side.  
"Come," he said and I lay beside him, face to face. My toes dangled at his calves and I rested my head on my elbow so my eyes were level with his.  
"What happens now?" I asked.  
"We talk. Maybe we kiss. You remember, I'll help you." He leaned over and kissed the tip of my nose.  
"But you won't tell me everything," I said. "I think you lie to me sometimes."  
He shrugged non-committally.  
"Why don't we kiss first and discuss that later?" he asked.  
"I won't have sex with you, or drink your blood, or let you drink mine," I said, counting them off on my fingers.  
"Aww," he said and grinned at me again.  
"I'm serious," I said. "Just a bit of harmless kissing."  
"Second base?" he ventured.  
"Meh," I said. "We'll see how we go."  
He winked at me.  
"I'm serious," I warned as he drew me in.  
"I know," he said. "But I'm going to woo you with my charm."

That made us both laugh and I had a flash of memory, half-memory, of laughing with Eric – the same deep belly-laughs we were sharing on his narrow sofa. I felt a surge of affection for him and I spontaneously leaned in to kiss him, my arms wrapped around his broad shoulders.  
"What made you change your mind?" he asked when we came up for air. "I thought I'd end up going to your room to physically carry you downstairs."  
I laughed at the thought.  
"I don't know," I said and thought of the photo. "I guess on some level I ... probably just missed you."  
"I missed you, too," he said and kissed me again.


	14. Chapter 14

Eric recognised the rap on the door. He opened it wide enough to not appear suspicious, but not wide enough to appear inviting. As he had expected, Pam was standing outside, her Gucci overnight bag in one hand. She was wearing tightly-fitted black leather jacket and, unusually, flat shoes: she was obviously about to leave.  
"The super at my place in Shreveport just called. The apartment over mine had a leak, he thinks I need to come back and check it out, just in case I need to contact my insurance. So I'll be in our favourite little shithole for a couple of days and I can swing by Fangtasia while I'm there – why do you look so weird?"  
"Weird?"  
"Yes, all kind of – " She twirled a red fingernail in his face. "- all kind of _this_."  
"This?"  
She leaned in and smelled him, then pushed him roughly aside.  
"No!" she cried. "No, no, no, no, _no_!"  
Eric quietly closed the door and watched her march around the suite, barely able to suppress a smile.

Pam came marching out of the bedroom and spied the sofa, cushions askew and scattered on the floor.  
"This place reeks of the Kennick!" she shrieked. With a dancer's grace, she dipped and picked up a cushion and flung it at Eric's head, hitting its mark squarely. "You moron!"  
He shrugged, still smiling.  
"Take that smug fucking smirk off your face, Eric," she cried. "Did you two fuck? Did you?"  
Her blue eyes glittered with rage beneath her long black eyelashes and her nails were clenched into her hips as she stood squarely before him.  
"No," he said. "We didn't. We just kissed."  
"Kissed?" Pam spat.  
"I told you I wanted to woo her," he said stubbornly.  
Pamela covered her eyes with her hands.  
"I literally – _literally_ – just vomited in my mouth," she declared.  
Eric laughed and started picking up cushions and pillows, straightening the cashmere throw that usually lay folded across the back of his sofa.  
"So you two are, what? Back together again? All lovey-dovey?" she sneered.  
"No," Eric said patiently. "I want to win her over. I want her to come back to me of her own accord, completely and fully."  
Pamela made vomiting noises.  
"And then," he continued, his voice low and brutal, "I want to catch the vampire Corbyn and sue Texas till his balls bleed. Simple."  
He punched a cushion lightly to fluff it up and threw it on the sofa.

Pamela stared at him.  
"So you ... you what? You invite her over for a bit of fooling around, pretend to take things slow? Did you give her your blood? No? She refused, right? And she wouldn't let you have hers. I bet you didn't demur: _oh, of course, min älsking. Whatever you like, min älsking._ How delightfully _chaste_ of you."  
She slow-clapped him and picked up the bloody glass from his desk, holding it aloft like a trophy.  
"And as soon as she had walked out that door, you went to the freezer and warmed yourself a nice big ol' glass of her blood. I bet our brainwashed little dimwit also doesn't remember the fact that she donated a few gallons of it way back when you two were lovers. You are a piece of work, Eric."  
Eric shook his head.  
"I told you I would get her back," he said. "This is what I have to do so I'm doing it."  
Pamela shook her head.  
"Or – here's another option – or you just send her back to Ireland and get on with your fucking life."  
"No," he said stubbornly. "She belongs here."  
"Your relationship," she said, viciously air-quoting _relationship_ with her crimson nails, "was fundamentally flawed. Remember? Remember the whole: _I-want-you-to-be-my-wife_ thing? And the _no-I-don't-want-to-be-married-to-a-vampire_ thing? I don't want to go all fucking Dr Phil on you, but..."  
"Maybe she's changed her mind," Eric said. He picked up a couple of files from his desk.  
"She's been glamoured," Pamela said, "not lobotomised."  
"Pamela, my darling," he said. "I have a meeting to go to and you'd better get moving if you intend to be in Shreveport before dawn."  
He held the door open for her and she sailed past him.  
"Fundamentally flawed!" she called as she walked off.

 _Two years previously_

"Maggie!"  
He could hear her moving around outside the bedroom.  
"Maggie!" he called again and pushed the blanket off, stretching himself, divesting quickly his shorts, his t-shirt.  
No answer.  
"Magdalena!" he barked.  
She opened the door, her wet hair in a towel.  
"Yes, my lord and master?" she asked coldly.

He indicated his naked body.  
"Come," he said.  
Maggie rolled her eyes.  
"I'm late, Eric," she said. "We're hosting the Governor of Massachusetts tomorrow, I have a thousand things to do tonight."  
"None of which are more important than me."  
" _All_ of which are more important than you."  
He sat up in bed.  
"Your first duty is to me," he said. "You're mine, my human. If I need you, you come."  
She snorted. "Seriously, Eric, your lines come straight from a cheap paperback romance. Who did that kind of shit ever work on?"  
"I'm trying to put it in a way you will understand," he said. "Because you seem to have difficulty grasping the concept."  
She hissed, a sharp intake of air through her teeth.  
"If you continue to refuse to have sex with me," he continued insouciantly, "I'll find someone who will."  
He leaned over and pulled his t-shirt back on.  
Maggie pretended to reel.  
"I'm sorry – what?" she cried. "As in: what the _fuck_? _Refuse_ to have sex?"  
"This is the third night in a row," he pointed out.  
"BECAUSE I'M BUSY!" she shouted. "I'm fucking stressed out, Eric! Visits from out-of-state governors that get covered by every fucking news network in the country don't just organise themselves, you know."  
"Your first duty is to me," he repeated stubbornly.  
"Well, I'd have more time to do my duty, if you didn't leave all this crap to me."  
"Are you saying I don't pull my weight?" he said. "I sit on that damn throne every night. Does that look like fun to you?"  
"You could delegate a lot of that to Pam," she argued. "All of those petty little squabbles – let Pam handle them."  
"You could delegate, too," he countered. "Why doesn't Montgomery take over some of your tasks?"  
"Because sometimes one of us needs to be there," she said icily. "You or me, one of us has to be present because the buck stops with us." She laughed drily. "What am I saying? With you. The buck stops with _you_ ," she corrected. Magdalena shook her head. "You're right," she said. "I don't even know why I'm doing this. I'm just your consort."

She tossed her wet towel on the bedroom floor, something she knew he hated.  
"You're just my consort because that's all you want to be," Eric said. He stood up and padded over to her, light on his feet. "I've asked you often enough to be my wife."  
She shook her head in disbelief.  
"Like that would change something," she said bitterly.  
"It would change everything."  
"Has it never occurred to you that I mightn't want to grow old by your side? To feel my body age and sag while you stay the same, stay like this? To have to allow you to be with other women, to have you mind me when I'm elderly and infirm? To have you bury me? To put my wedding ring in your collection so that some day you can say, _Oh yes, that was the redhead. The Irishwoman. The carrier. I was fond of her_."

She was crying now, covering her face with her hands. Startled, Eric wrapped his arms around her but she tried to push him away.  
"Leave it," she said, but he squeezed her tighter.  
"What collection of rings?" he asked softly into the top of her head.  
"I found them when Texas abducted you. Pam and I went through your desk to find your address book and I found the hidden compartment. Fourteen rings, fourteen wives. I don't want to be number fifteen, Eric." She looked up, her eyes red and swollen. "It is ... it is so inexorably _sad_. I really don't think I can do it."

Eric pressed her close, resting his chin on the top of her head, her red hair darker now that it was wet.  
"Some of those women were chosen for me," he said. "Some I chose for expediency, for their wealth or for their standing. I choose you because I like you, Magdalena."  
She snorted into his t-shirt. "Bowl me over with romance, why don't you."  
"I love you, then," he said. "And I hope you will consider a ceremony of symbiosis. Perhaps of marriage – here or in Dublin, whatever you wish."  
She nodded her head slowly, as if she was thinking it over, then pushed him gently away.  
"Please put on some pants," she said with a watery smile. "It's hard to have a conversation with you with that thing ... waving at me."  
Eric laughed and she picked up her towel and folded it up, a peace offering, before she leaned in to stroke his cheek and kiss him.  
"Meet you here at five a.m.?" she said shyly. "We should have a little time before dawn?"  
He returned the kiss and she left.  
It was only when he was buttoning up his shirt that he realised that she hadn't said she loved him in return.


	15. Chapter 15

Before I left for New Orleans, I made a trip into Dublin's city centre to buy some make up. I had, to my name, a dried-up tube of Maybelline mascara and the remains of an eyeshadow that I had to scrape out with a fingernail. So I spent a couple of hours browsing make up counters, touching colours and sniffing perfumes, buying enough basics to give me a professional face for my new job. As I was waiting to pay, I glanced over at a woman at the counter beside me who was having her makeup done. She was in her sixties and I instinctively knew that her skin would be baby-soft, smoothed by the expensive creams and foundation the cosmetician was deftly applying. The older woman's face had the same look of rapt expectation you see on a small child standing in front of a Christmas tree: hope. Anticipation. Opening her eyes to a face in a mirror that looked like the face she left behind in her thirties, her forties. In her expression, I could see how she might have looked when she was a little girl and I found it strangely moving to see how an old face could still carry the ghost of a young child. I had to look away to blink rapidly, so I wouldn't make a show of myself snivelling about the brevity of life at the Dior counter.

"There!" the cosmetician said. "Just one final touch."  
She opened a little box, plucked a fat brush from the velvet cloth in front of her and lightly dabbed the woman's face with a sprinkling of powder.  
And there it was – the air was filled with the particles of powder and my sensitive nose inhaled them with one deep breath. _That smell,_ I thought. _What does it remind me of, that smell?_

Now, standing at my front door in the tiny palace apartment, I could smell the same smell and I knew it was Pam, standing silently on the other side. As soon as I had met her again, I'd caught her scent: a faint lilac-y smell and that dusty sweetness of face powder. It was as familiar to me as Eric's and, based on my diary, it wasn't hard to understand why: Pam and I had apparently spent a lot of time together. We seemed to have done all kinds of things and many of diary entries were annotated with enough exclamation marks to make me realise that I had probably looked forward to them: getting a manicure with Pam. Going to the movies with Pam. Going to some kind of trade fair in Atlanta with Pam. Based on the fact that her attitude towards me since I had arrived was nothing more than pained tolerance, I found it hard to believe that we had ever been gal pals.

So I flung open the door and had the small satisfaction of making her jump.  
"Knock, knock," she said unnecessarily.  
"Do come in," I replied and she sailed past me, a bag hooked over her arm.  
"Can I help you?" I asked when she continued to say nothing, just looking around.  
"Well," she drawled. "I'm in a bit of a bind, Maggie. See, Eric had asked me to take you with me to Shreveport for the night."  
"Shreve - ?"  
"Shreveport. _Shreveport_? You don't even remember Shreveport?"  
"I think I might have stopped there with Stephen and Ilaria...?" I ventured. I had a vague memory of a rainy night, a tequila sunrise.  
"That's where you and Eric met," she said. "Fell in love."  
Her voice sounded choked, like she was trying not to snort. Or vomit.  
"Oh, okay," I said. "Right. Shreveport."  
"Anyway, our liege lord thought it might be useful, to – you know – help your recollection. A trip down memory lane, so to say."

I was a bit confused. I had just left our liege lord in a state of grabby excitement, extricating myself from his long fingers before I did something I would regret, whispering promises that I would be back the very next night when the meetings were over.  
"Of course," Pamela said airily, "that was before _this_ happened. So now I'm not sure what I ought to do."  
She looked me up and down and smiled benevolently. I felt myself blush. It felt like the time my mother caught me snogging David Kenneally behind my father's garden shed.  
"It sounds like a good idea. Um, it's just that I ...eh...I have to work tomorrow night," I said weakly. "I want to hear the town planner's proposals for waste management."  
"Of _course_ you do," she said in a tone that implied that I most certainly did not. "Of course, darling Maggie. I'm sure you won't want to be away for an instant now that you're back at Eric's – "  
She stopped and bit her lip.  
"Anyway," she finished quickly, "I'd better leave. I have to get to the airport and I - "  
"Back at Eric's what?" I cut in.  
"Never mind. Really, I shouldn't have said anything."  
"No, finish it," I said hotly.  
"Well," she said, lowering her voice as though sharing a confidence, "at Eric's beck and call. Again. I mean, he obviously summoned you and you went. Not that I blame you," she added. "He's an attractive man, a great lay. It's rare that he summons a woman and she doesn't come, if you know what I mean."  
She gave me a knowing wink.  
I tried to laugh casually. "It wasn't like that," I said, brushing it off.  
"It wasn't?" Pam enquired politely. "Oh, I'm sorry, Maggie. Naturally it would be different with you. It's just his usual _modus operandi_ , you know. He clicks his fingers and whoever he wants comes running."  
She smiled at me and patted my arm like I was getting some kind of consolation prize. I bristled.

Pamela gave another one of her bright white smiles, then leaned in and airkissed my cheeks, a swooshing of Pam-scent, soft skin and the slight scrape of sharp diamond earrings against my face, like a tiny warning that I had come too close.  
"I'll be back the night after next," she said. "We _must_ catch up then. So much to talk about."  
"So it's just one night?" I asked.  
She paused at the door. "Yes," she said. "I have one or two things to tend to. I'm sorry for putting you on the spot, Maggie - I just thought you might like to catch up on old friends."  
"I have friends in Shreveport?"  
"You sure do," she said warmly. "They've been _so_ worried about you. But they'll understand. They know how Eric is."  
She turned the door handle and I made the decision.  
"Give me five minutes," I said. "I'll grab a few things."  
"Are you sure?" she asked, an expression of concern on her face. "What will Eric say?"  
"He's the one who suggested it," I reminded her. "He can survive without me for one night."  
"Well, if you say so," she conceded graciously and examined her nails while I threw a fresh shirt, a change of underwear and rudimentary toiletries in to my overnight bag. I wondered if I should phone Eric and tell him, but that would make it seem like I was asking for permission. Which I wasn't, was I?

Pamela linked her arm through me and squeezed it as we walked off down the corridor, telling me about some bar she wanted to visit when we got to Shreveport. I gave the sentries a casual wave as we got into Pam's car – see, not dancing attendance on the king, me. Not another one of his random women, me – something I continued to think and overthink as we sped towards the airport at breakneck speed.

It was only when we were stopped at a traffic light that I glanced up at Pam to find her smiling at me with something odd in her expression. _What was it?_ I wondered as the lights changed and she sped off, throwing me back in my seat. Pride. It was pride. She'd looked at me as though she were vaguely proud of me, like a little dog that had learned a new trick. It took me all of thirty seconds more to realise that while I didn't know Pam very well any more, she knew me like the back of her hand. I'd been played and she had won. 


	16. Chapter 16

When Pamela told me we would be flying to Shreveport by private plane, I had visions of us being whooshed through the skies in luxury, being plied with champagne and handed hot towels to freshen up.  
Nope.  
It was a tiny little propeller plane that had space for the pilot, two rows of seats and that was it: the rest of the plane's seats had been removed to make space for coffins. In this case, I presumed it was Pam's lacquered black coffin with a discreet gold trim behind us.  
I looked around; the plane looked pretty flimsy to my eyes. I shifted nervously in my seat.  
"You'll be fine," she said from behind a magazine.  
"I'm not a great flyer," I replied mournfully.  
The plane was cleared for take-off – not much happening at the airport an hour before dawn – and it rattled down the runway. I would've loved to reach out and squeeze Pam's hand for comfort but she was hidden behind The Great Wall of Vogue.

When we were in the air, she deigned to lower the magazine, making a big deal of folding the corner of the page she was on. She smiled at me in her cool way.  
"I know you think we're going to have little girlie chats about you and Eric and your precious love story," she said. "But you can forget it. He has forbidden me to discuss his relationship – past or present – with you. If you have questions, ask him or un-fucking-glamour yourself."  
"Okay."  
"That is, if you two can detach your lips long enough. You disgust me."  
"Would it help if I said I disgust myself?" I laughed. "I really didn't mean to end up doing ... well, _that_. It was kind of weird; it just sort of happened."  
She snorted. " _Kinda ... sorta_ ," she said in a mock-whiny voice. " _Tsk_. You two have imbibed pints of each other's blood. It's a wonder you were able to keep your hands off each other at all. But, seriously, not talking about it."  
"Fine," I said. "Can I ask about you and me?"  
"There is no you and me."  
"Well, not now – "  
"Not now and not ever."  
"There was once," I said argumentatively. "We did lots of stuff together. We went to New York and saw _Hamilton_ last March. We must've been good friends because I _hate_ musicals."  
She glared at me and put her magazine aside.

"Very well, Ms Kennick. We used to be... friends."  
She said the word like it was entirely distasteful.  
"Did we have a falling-out?" I asked. "It's just that ... you don't seem very well-disposed towards me."  
"Well-disposed?" she sneered. "That's an understatement."  
"So we had a fight?"  
"No, we did not have a fight."  
"Was it because of Eric?"  
She stared at me and started to pick up her magazine again.  
"Wait," I said hurriedly. "You don't have to say anything. Just nod. That's not disobeying him, is it?"  
She looked at me coolly, then inclined her head a fraction.  
"Okay." I could do this. I used to be really good at _Twenty Questions_. "It was because of Eric. Because ... of something I did to Eric?"  
She hesitated, nodded.  
"Because I broke up with him?"  
She stared at me like I was an imbecile, then nodded.  
"Things didn't work out between us and I broke up with him, broke off ... our engagement?"  
She rolled her eyes. "Really?" she said, clicking her fingers in my direction. "You really remember sweet fucking nothing?"

I threw my hands up in the air helplessly.  
"You didn't break off your _engagement_ ," she said in a pointed way.  
"But we were supposed to get married, right?"  
She nodded, this time a vicious jab with her chin.  
"So we ... were supposed to get married and I left him, but I didn't break off the engagement? That makes no sense. Oh – wait now – "  
Another option dawned on me and I winced.  
"I didn't ... leave him at the altar or something, did I?"  
Pamela slow-clapped me. "Good girl, Maggie," she said.  
I felt a little stunned.  
"Well, that's kind of shitty," I spluttered. "Did I really?"  
"Oh yes," she replied. "All kinds of dignitaries were coming to see you two fools plight your troth and you did a runner."  
My stomach churned and flipped.  
"That ... it's just that ... that doesn't really sound like me," I said weakly. "I can't imagine doing that to _anyone_. Not someone I love, in any case."  
"Someone you love. Quite."  
Pam was pithy, flicking through her magazine again.  
"Seriously, though – is that what happened? Did I really do that?"  
"What amazes me," Pam said, tossing the Vogue aside and slipping off her seatbelt, "is that despite the fact that your memory has been wiped, you seem absurdly certain of your moral compass. Yes, you did it. You bottled. Any further questions? Ask the man you jilted."

She stood up, hunched over in the little plane, and pressed a button to open the coffin. The lid lifted with a gentle swoosh of air.  
"We'll be landing in the next few minutes," she said, climbing in. She did so elegantly, as though she were stepping into the bathtub.  
"The guys from Anubis will see to it that we're taken to my apartment. You may sleep in the guest room; there are fresh towels in the laundry closet. Don't snoop around, I _will_ know if you've been through my stuff and I _will_ make you suffer for it."  
"Of course not," I said indignantly. "I wouldn't do that."  
Or would I? Apparently there was another version of me that lured men into marriage and then left them at the altar, so maybe that me also went through people's personal stuff while they were incapacitated.  
"By the way," she drawled, pulling her phone out of her pocket. "Why don't you pop out and visit your old friend Sookie Stackhouse tomorrow? My car is in the underground garage. Don't scratch it."  
My phone pinged and I saw she'd sent me a telephone number.  
"Sookie - ?"  
"Stackhouse," she repeated, as I typed it into my phone.  
"Was she a friend of mine? Like, a real friend?" I asked.  
Pamela pulled a face of shock.  
"You two were _really_ close," she said emphatically. "If you have any questions about your time here in Louisiana, she's the one to ask."  
I narrowed my eyes and stared at her while the pilot shouted over his shoulder that we were approaching Shreveport airport.  
"I have a feeling this is some kind of trick," I said suspiciously. "Is it, Pam?"  
"Maggie, Maggie, Maggie," she said in return, shaking her head, ever so disappointed with me.  
Which didn't actually answer my question.  
She shot me another one of her brittle smiles, then lay back and pressed a button that lowered the lid.

I sat through a bumpy landing by myself, the sky pinkening in the east as we landed in Shreveport. The men from Anubis loaded Pam's coffin onto a gurney and steered it over to the terminal building. I scampered behind, carrying her overnight bag and my own. 


	17. Chapter 17

I woke to a poke. A poking foot, to be precise. When I opened my eyes, I saw scarlet toenails shoving my shoulder roughly. I looked up and saw Pam beside the bed, wearing a bathrobe with her hair in a towel turban. Her legs were long, her toes tapering to neatly lacquered points.  
"What are you doing here?" she asked.  
I was confused.  
"You told me I could sleep in your guestroom," I replied. "Am I in the wrong room? Is this your room?"  
It hardly was, was it? This room was nicely – if primly – decorated. The other bedroom looked like a bedroom from the palace at Versailles. One that had been steampunked.  
"I know that," she said impatiently. "But didn't I tell you to look up Sookie Stackhouse?"  
"Oh, yeah – the number doesn't work," I said, reaching for my phone.  
I'd called mid-afternoon but a robotic voice had told me the number was no longer in service. I took it as a sign and crawled back under the covers for some more sleep.  
Pam pulled her phone from the pocket of her robe and pressed the screen. I heard the beeps and then the faint, tinny voice telling her that the number was no longer available.  
"That bitch changed her number," she said. "Now ain't that a kick in the pants?"  
My phone beeped again. This time was a message from Eric and I couldn't help but smile when his name flashed onscreen.  
 _Are you up?_ it read. _I want you._  
Oh, God.  
"Is that Eric?" she asked as I started to type a reply. I nodded and suddenly she whacked the phone out of my hands.  
"Don't be such a doormat!" she cried. The phone lay face down on the rug beside the bed.  
"Pam!"  
"Beck and call, Maggie! Beck and call! Promise me you won't answer that till after midnight at least."  
I felt like whining: _But I want to..._ Instead I summoned the shreds of my self-respect and nodded.  
"Say it!" she demanded.  
"I won't write back till after midnight," I said sulkily. "I'll play passive-aggressive mind-games just for you."  
She picked up my phone and put it in the pocket of her robe with my own.  
"I'm confiscating this, just in case," she said. "I'll have to keep you busy. You can tag along with me and when I get my stuff done, we can just pop on out to Sookie Stackhouse together. I'm sure she will be _deeee-light-ed_ to see you again."  
"Sookie Stackhouse hates me, doesn't she?" I said unhappily. "I know there's a reason why you're insisting that I contact her. Did I do something to her, too? Was she supposed to be my bridesmaid or something?"  
Pamela let out a peal of laughter.  
"Maggie!" she cried in fake incredulity. "How can you be so mistrustful? Now get up and get dressed," she added and started to raise her foot. I rolled out the other side of the bed as fast as I could before her scarlet claws touched me again.

x

"And this is Fangtasia," she said, marching past the waiting line of punters. It was a mild night and the queue was long; many were wearing dog collars and leathers. The girls were dressed up to the nines. In my jeans and t-shirt, I felt underdressed.  
Pam seemed to read my mind.  
"I told you so," she'd said.  
At least twice she'd asked me if this was what I was going to wear and twice I'd told her that I had literally left in the clothes I'd been wearing. I didn't realise a trip to a vampire bondage nightclub was on the cards.

She nodded briskly at the bouncer and pushed the padded door, pulling me behind her.  
"Don't talk to any vamps," she said. "They're all hillbillies or tourists. As far as they're concerned, you're Eric's, so keep your distance."  
She paused in her march through the bar to look at me, then leaned into sniff me.  
"A pity you showered," she said. "They might've smelled him on you, which would make the whole thing easier."  
She pulled my t-shirt down an inch or two and I yelped in indignation.  
"You used to wear his fang," she said. "Where did that go to?"  
"I don't know," I snapped crossly and pushed her hand away. "Get lost, Pam."  
She smiled and pulled me in, past vampires who turned from their partners to lean towards me, to breathe my smell deeply. I thought unhappily about what I'd last had to eat – very little. But coffee, lots of coffee. I probably smelled like a latte macchiato. I saw one vampire's tongue flick out, like a snake's. He was licking his lips.

A small blond woman popped up in front of me like a Jack-in-the-Box.  
"Maggieeeeeee! Maggieeeeeeee!" she squealed and threw herself on me. I allowed myself be hugged and cautiously hugged her back. I could feel her bones through her tiny top. She was wearing perfume – a lot of it – and a lot of stuff in her hair, which had been teased into a blond cloud, like candy floss.  
"You've lost weight!" she cried. "But you look good! What're you doing here? Are you back with Eric? I thought you two broke up - and you was supposed to get married. Ev'rybody says you dumped him, did you dump him? Serves him right. Poor Eric. That was kinda bitchy of you, though."  
Watching her talk was fascinating. Her face changed as rapidly as her thoughts, her eyes lighting up at the thoughts of Eric's misery, dropping in sympathy, then narrowing in disgust at me.  
"You tell her, Ginger," Pamela said drily. "Give it to her."  
Ginger smacked my arm. It hurt.  
"You shouldenta done that," she said. "That was mean."  
"I know," I said, affronted. "I'm sorry."  
"Don't say it to me!" she said fiercely. "Say it to him!"  
"I did," I insisted. "I will. I'm sorry."  
I looked to Pam for help and she took pity on me.  
"Don't worry, Ginger darling, she's been making it up to him," she said. "Now take her off and liquor her up a little, but make sure the rest of these blood-thirsty fuckers know who she belongs to. I have work to do, children. Stay out of my hair for a while."  
And she tossed the afore-mentioned hair before spinning on a stiletto heel and walking off towards a door marked 'Private.'

Ginger slipped in behind the bar and I sat down on a barstool. The human couple next to me looked over at me and smiled nervously. I smiled back, showing teeth to put them at their ease. They nodded at me and turned back to their drinks.  
"Mojito?" Ginger said. "Tequila sunrise? Cuba libre?"  
"Tequila sunrise."  
She mixed the drink quickly and placed it in front of me. A vampire took the stool on the other side of me and ordered an O Positive. While it was warming in the microwave, Ginger leaned in to have a whispered conversation: How was Eric? Was I back living in New Orleans? Was he ever coming back up to Shreveport? Did I think she could come visit sometime?  
The questions came at a rapid-fire speed and there was no time to answer them.  
The microwave pinged and she took out the blood.  
"That's too hot," I said. I'd developed an eye for that kind of thing.  
"Damn microwave is too old," she grumbled, putting it down on the counter. "Either heats like the fires of hell or not at all."

Ileaned over the bar took a bigger glass and indicated that Ginger should bring me another bottle. I poured the hot blood into the new glass and added a dash from the cold bottle. Stirred it around and added another drop.  
"There you go," I said to the vampire next to me. "I've been told I'm pretty good at this. I might have a career as a vampire cocktail waitress."  
"Thank you," he replied. He didn't have a southern accent, just the kind of bland nowhere-in-particular accent that American newsreaders have. He smiled at me widely, showing me his pointy teeth, and his face was openly curious.  
"Enjoy it," I said with a polite smile, then turned back to Ginger.  
"Have we met before?" he asked.  
"Look, I'm sorry," I said. "I don't mean to be rude, but I belong to another vampire."  
"I understand," the vampire replied. "But I was genuinely just wondering if we'd met – you look familiar to me."  
Oh, _gawd_ – maybe we _had_ met. Maybe this was someone I'd known – a friend of Eric's. A vampire from New Orleans or a member of some other monarch's court. I broke out in a cold sweat, trying to figure out a way to answer him politely. But vaguely.  
"I'm afraid I don't recall," I said brightly. "But, eh – cheers!"  
For want of a better idea, I held up my glass and he hesitated before clinking his against mine.  
"Nice to have met you, anyway," he said. "Have a nice evening."  
"You, too," I replied

He inclined his head at me, like a bow, and hit Ginger with the full blast of his smile before he walked off. I put my bag on the empty stool to prevent anyone else from trying to sit next to me and turned back to Ginger, who'd been watching the whole exchange silently.  
"Do you know him?" I asked.  
"Out-of-towner," she replied. "He's been in here a few times these past two weeks. Says he's here on business from New York."  
I felt relieved. Based on the dates marked in the diary I'd found, we'd been to the court of New York on a number of occasions. I'd probably seen him there.  
"Do you think he's cute?" she said, suddenly preening.  
I glanced over my shoulder and the vampire caught my eye before leaning down to whisper something in a human woman's ear. Her face broke out into a broad grin and she ran her fingernails down the skin of her arm. I shuddered.  
"Nah," I said.  
"Me neither," she said. "I prefer 'em big and blond. Am I right?"  
I laughed. "Yeah. Big and blond works for me, too."  
She picked up her glass and we toasted our common taste in men, then she started pointing out other men in the bar, rating them on her own personal – and somewhat erratic – scale of hotness. We were mid-debate on the score to be awarded to a handsome young man, for whom I was deducting points because of his cowboy boots (Ginger was outraged), when Pamela came striding out of the back room.

She looked at Ginger and me with an expression of mild despair, as though she'd just caught us smoking in the school yard, then picked up my bag.  
"You," she said. "Come on. Time to go. We have to get to Sookie Stackhouse before midnight. Lord knows, she's a cranky little thing at the best of times so I want to get her before she goes to bed."  
"Does she live nearby?" I asked.  
"I wish," Pamela said. "She lives in a little shithole called Bon Temps."  
Ginger clapped her hands in delight. "You gonna see Sookie? You say hullo to her from me, y'hear? Give her my very best regards."  
"We will," my vampire hostess said drily. "Come on, Maggie, mush, mush."  
I followed her to the door, pausing as she pulled it open. I looked around to wave goodbye to Ginger, instead I caught the eye of the vampire from the bar. He gave me a friendly nod before dipping his head down to his human companion. I saw the flash of his fangs and she writhed beneath him in ecstasy, then she jolted him off towards the restrooms.  
" _Bon appétit_ ," I muttered to myself as we left the bar.


	18. Chapter 18

"Can you tell me something about this Sookie Stackhouse?" I asked Pam.  
She didn't take her eyes off the road. Nor did she answer.  
"Something," I wheedled. "I know you're frogmarching me into some kind of trap, so don't you think you could give me some kind of warning? A hint?"  
"It's hardly a trap – oh, fine," she said, passing a car that was trundling along comfortably on the road at a snail's pace. "She's a telepath."  
She was!  
"I know that!" I said, shocked. "How come I don't remember Sookie Stackhouse but I do remember that she's a telepath? That's so weird."  
"Because glamouring leaves holes," Pam said, glancing sideways at me. "You told your glamourer that you wanted to forget Sookie Stackhouse, but you forgot to mention some salient details. So you don't remember her, but it doesn't surprise you that she's a telepath. Or that she's part fae?"  
I nodded. "That's right," I said, like I was remembering a story I'd once heard. "She's part fae."  
But something else stuck out:  
"Why do you think I had myself glamoured?" I asked Pam.

Her perfectly-formed eyebrows shot upwards in mock-surprise.  
"Don't you think so?" she replied. "Eric and I are pretty sure you're behind it. You seem to have created a pretty comprehensive list of stuff to forget."  
"I guess," I conceded. I seemed to have hit new heights in self-sabotage, I thought unhappily.  
"The only problem is," Pam continued, turning off the main road, "that you can't forget so much stuff in the one go. You've forgotten me, but I bet you know a lot more about me than you realise."  
"Background stuff? The way I can remember Sookie being a telepath?"  
She nodded. I stared out the window at the dark houses we were whizzing past. I tried to remember. What might she have told me? About her maker? About her past? About her family?  
"Your mother was Estonian," I said suddenly. "She came to America with your father, who got a job out west on the railroad and pretty much abandoned you two when you were small. And you said she had blond hair that she wore in braids. During the day they were wrapped around her head like a crown, but at night, when she unpinned them, they fell to her waist. When she brushed her hair out, it was like a sheet of gold. She washed her hair once a week, on a Sunday, and it was your job to comb it out. You had a comb of whalebone that your Estonian grandfather made."  
Pamela stared straight ahead. She gave no sign that she was listening, but I knew by her vampire stillness that I had her entire attention.  
"And she taught you how to knit. You used to make extra money knitting silk stockings in summer and wool stockings in winter, you often had blisters on your fingers because you had to knit in the cold evenings by candlelight. The only colour in your dingy one-room hovel was from the lilacs that grew outside the window. When they bloomed in early summer, your mother would cut them and stick them in jam jars and milk bottles all around the place. And you smell of lilacs, Pam, because your mother loved them. They're in your blood."

I sat back in my seat and stared at her, waiting for a reaction.  
"Wonderful," she said bitterly. "Just fucking wonderful."  
She used the back of her hand to wipe her cheek and even in the darkness of the car, I could see it was smeared with blood. I wanted to reach out and touch her hand, to show I was sorry for upsetting her, but something in the set of her face told me that the last thing she wanted was for me to see her cry.

I pretended to look out the window to give her some semblance of privacy. She didn't say another word to me until we pulled up outside a yellow house in a dark clearing, lit up only by a porch light.  
"We're here," she said curtly and got out.

x  
"Husband of Sookie," Pamela said by way of greeting when he opened the door. I realised she had no idea what his name was and, by her tone, didn't think it important enough to learn.  
"Progeny of Tall Vampire," he answered jovially in the same vein, then saw me behind her. "Hey, Irish!" he called and stepped outside on the porch to pump my hand energetically. "Long time, no see? How're you doing?"  
"Very well, thank you," I answered cheerfully, painfully aware that I didn't know his name either and his enthusiastic familiarity had made the opportunity to ask disappear.  
"We're here to see Sookie," Pamela said, looking over his shoulder in case she was hiding behind the door. "Is she here?"  
"I'm real sorry," he answered. "She's at Portia Bellefleur's pre-bachelorette party."  
"Portia. Bellefleur's. Pre-Bachelorette. Party," said the vampire, enunciating each word as though she could not understand the sum of them.  
Sookie's husband looked at me, a little overwhelmed. "See, Portia's marrying some hotshot lawyer from Jackson and she's doing this whole wedding thing. There was some trip to Shreveport with a bunch of girls to buy a dress – 'Say Yes to the Dress', is that a thing? All I know is they came back a lot drunker than I've ever been when I went clothes shopping."  
"So where is she now?" Pam asked impatiently and Sookie's husband checked his watch.  
"She should be home any minute," he said. "If you want to wait? Portia's having some kind of ... "  
He looked at me beseechingly, as though I could help him. "... some kind of gin-tasting?" he finished weakly. "Seriously, I don't know. I thought people just went and got married, I didn't know you had to have, like, a series of events beforehand. Look!"

We turned and looked at where he was pointing. The headlights of a car flashed and flickered against the dark trees and a pick-up truck came into view.  
"Oh-oh," the husband said and he made his way down the steps of the veranda. The truck pulled up on the gravel.  
"Hey Jason," he said and the blond man behind the wheel replied with a wave, then stuck his head out of the window when he saw Pam and me waiting politely by the front door.  
"Hello, Pam," he said and then, with a little more warmth, "Hey, Maggie!"  
"Hey!" I called back. Jason. I'd caught his name, at least.  
"Sookie's brother," Pam said out of the corner of her mouth. He gave us a brief nod and put the truck in gear, driving away as fast as he could. Or so it felt.  
In the meantime, Sookie's husband had helped her out of the truck. She was small, blond, wearing a flowery dress and holding her shoes in one hand.  
"Oh, Luke!" she cried and draped her arms around his neck. "I know I said I fucking hated Portia Bellefleur but I don't, really. And I had just the best time. Best time ever."  
"Most gin ever," he said, grinning at us apologetically.  
Beside me, Pam harrumphed.  
"A drunk fairy and a brain-damaged carrier," she muttered. "This night just keeps getting better."  
Sookie stumbled up the steps, held steady by her husband.

"Cheese and rice," she called. "Look who's here!"  
It took me a moment to figure out what she was saying. The Southerners had a whole heap of euphemisms to avoid taking the Lord's name in vain, many of them involving cheese.  
"Pamela Swynford de Beaufort ! Maggie... Maggie Something. Not Maggie Northman, anyway, that much we know."  
She threw her head back and laughed. "Oh my," she said to Pam as she passed her, throwing the front door open with aplomb, "we've got so much catching up to do. A round of True Blood for everyone! Except the humans," she whispered to me, giving me a theatrical wink. I bit back a smile.  
"Okay," I whispered in return.  
"Come on, Maggie," Pamela purred, her hand on the small of my back as she steered me through the door. "Don't you want to _catch up_?"

And suddenly it hit me: Pamela had taken me to Sookie Stackhouse so she could fill me in on all the stuff Pamela couldn't. She would never disobey her maker, oh no, but she knew how to get around him. I hesitated, thought about turning around and going back to the car, but the hand on my back gave me a firm little shove and I found myself over the threshold, standing on the rag rug in Sookie's hall.


	19. Chapter 19

Sookie stuck her head around the door and said, "You can come in, Pam."  
Whereupon Pam stepped inside, looking around her as she did.  
"Homey," she remarked. "Such rustic charm. I admire how you stay true to your decorating approach despite all advances in style and taste. Brave move, Sookie."  
Sookie rolled her eyes at me. "She's such a bitch," she said. "Come on in, y'all. Tell me to what I owe this great honour."  
She rolled the 'r' in _great_ , almost like a drum roll.  
I sat down on the small sofa next to Luke. Sookie positioned herself by the fireplace, her arms folded tightly across her chest.  
"We were just passing by – " Pam began as she elegantly sank down on a chair.  
"No one passes by here," Sookie interrupted.  
"Well, we were in Shreveport and we decided to pop out and see you."  
"Why?" Although she was swaying slightly, the expression on Sookie's face was focussed and sharp.  
Pam hit her with a wide smile. "Why, because we – "  
"Stop!" she cried and held up a hand.  
She turned to look at me.  
"I can't hear you," she said.  
"I didn't say anything."  
"No, there's a quietness. You're not thinking ... you're not thinking the right thoughts." She leaned down to peer in my face and I tried not to shrink back from the smell of gin. "Have you been glamoured?"  
I glanced up at Pam and she cut in, "Yes, Sookie, that's part of the reason why we're here. Maggie's memories a teeny-weeny bit incomplete and I was hoping you could fill her in."  
"Fill her in yourself," Sookie snapped.  
"Ah, well – " Pam began and faltered.  
"You back with Eric?" she asked me in her quick-fire way.  
"Um, I – " I looked to Pam for help.

Sookie looked at me and I knew she was reading the jumble of thoughts in my brain, the rushing half-sentences, the wondering, the doubts. The unfiltered mess. I tried to block them but she shook her head, like it was no use.  
"Would you kindly step outside for a moment, Pam?" she asked sweetly.  
"Certainly," Pam replied in the same honeyed tone.  
They went outside on to the veranda, Sookie quietly closing the front door behind them.  
In the silence, my stomach rumbled.  
"I'm so sorry," I said, embarrassed. "When you're with vampires, you don't get much opportunity to stop for a bite to eat."  
"We got some leftover chicken in the fridge," Luke said. "I can fix you a sandwich?"  
I wanted to politely demur, but my stomach growled viciously when it heard there was chicken.  
"Would you mind?"  
He stood up and held out a hand, pulling me to my feet.  
"No trouble, Irish," he said.

We sat in the kitchen in the dark and ate our sandwiches. He'd been about to switch on the light when we realised that Pam and Sookie had moved down the veranda, away from the living room. Now they were having a furiously whispered conversation outside the kitchen window. Luke had hesitated, looked at me, then left it discreetly off. We made our sandwiches by the light of the porch and pretended not to hear the snippets of conversation that came through the kitchen window.  
 _"- it's not my problem!"_ Sookie hissed and her voice lapsed into an urgent hiss as she told Pam off.

I gingerly took a sip of my ice tea and tried not to shudder. One thing I hadn't missed in the south: cold tea with too much sugar. Ugh.  
"Haven't seen you since ... since that night," Luke said in a low voice.  
He smiled at me pleasantly and pushed a bowl of taco chips my way. I took a handful; I was starving.  
"Which night?" I asked, trying to crunch quietly.  
 _"You owe it to me,"_ Pam said, her voice rising, then falling, _"You owe it to both of us –_ " _  
_"The night you were, you know, taken," he said, biting into his sandwich. "I'm guessing you remember _that_ , right?"  
I pretended to be busy with my own, all the while my brain was working rapidly, rapidly, trying to negotiate the next steps.  
"Oh, that's right," I said. " _That_ night. Of course."  
"We were really worried about you," he said. And I knew he meant it. He had an attractive face – he wasn't classically handsome, but he had kind eyes and a nice smile and this made him endearing. I could see why Sookie had fallen for him. "I hope they didn't ... do anything bad to you."  
He ducked his eyes shyly, probably afraid of touching a nerve.  
"No, I was fine," I said. "I mean, I don't know how much you guys actually know – "  
I looked at him quizzically, waiting for him to volunteer the information. And he did.  
"Not much," he said. "Jessica told us that it was organised by the King of Texas. She said the guys who took you were English – like, vampire mercenaries or something."  
"That's right," I agreed, clueless. Taking notes. "They were English. One of them was called Gunnar and the other was - " I tailed off expectantly.  
 _"Eric doesn't know –_ " Pam said loudly and then, as if remembering where she was, immediately switched to a whisper. I strained to hear but I could only hear the sibilant hiss of her words.  
"Yeah, I didn't exactly catch their names," Luke said. "The dark-haired one who took you – he was the guy they called Raven, right? Jeez, he looked like a raven with that black coat flapping."  
He moved his arms like wings to show me.  
"Scary guy," I murmured.  
 _"No, Pam!"_ Sookie cried and we both looked towards the window.

"Eric was so mad," Luke continued. "I was kind of afraid when he showed up. He was prowling around outside, looking like he wanted to rip something, someone, up. Boy, – " he said and picked a chip. "I wouldn't like to get on his bad side."  
"You and me both," I smiled and he smiled back at me, co-conspirators.  
"And I know this is stupid and all, right, but I was a bit relieved when Sookie told me he had a woman. I mean, I don't think Sookie would ever do anything but, still, they've had each other's blood and there's that whole history there - "  
Aha.  
"Which is why it's so nice that you two are friends, you know. Real decent of you," he finished. "And we owe you a debt for protecting her that night."  
Okay, so this was getting weird. Once again, I'd gone so far down a rabbit-hole that I couldn't scramble back out. Pretending I knew what he was talking about meant that I couldn't suddenly backtrack and start asking questions. All I could do was make the right noises and hope he would continue to feel confessional.  
"My pleasure," I said and smiled beatifically at him.  
"Anyways," Luke finished, picking up our plates, "it's nice talking to someone about it. When it comes to the vamps, I kinda get the feeling they don't even realise I exist. I'm just the invisible dude that comes with Sookie, know what I mean? Pamela didn't even remember my name."  
"In fairness," I replied, "she's spectacularly bad with human names."  
Another thing I remembered about Pam: her tendency to address humans by nicknames to avoid having to learn their real names. So odious, these breathers.

We went back into the sitting room and made polite conversation about Bon Temps and Luke's job. Minutes later, Sookie came back in, looking flushed and Pam had a kind of deathly whiteness to her that looked like rage.  
"Maggie," she said, addressing me in her frank way, "Pamela has been forbidden to talk to you about what happened between you and Eric and ... and some other stuff. She brought you up here to get me to tell you."  
That much I knew.  
"Yes, well, I'm not getting mixed up in this shit," Sookie said angrily. "You need to talk to Eric directly, do you hear? And don't take no bull from him. Ask him what happened in Bon Temps, do you hear? Ask him what happened."  
"I will," I promised.  
"You could just _tell_ her," Pam said in a tone that suggested that she'd said this a dozen times already.  
"I'm. Not. Getting. Mixed. Up. In. This," Sookie spat viciously. She went over to Luke and linked her arm through his, a sign of solidarity. A sign of whose side she was on. "It's over, Pam. How often do I have to tell you that?"  
Pamela sighed. "Fine," she conceded. "Grab your things, Maggie."  
I picked up my bag, extended a hand to Luke, who took it and shook it.  
"Thank you for the sandwich," I said. I held out my hand to Sookie but she shook her head.  
"No offense, Maggie," she said coldly, "But I want y'all to stay away from my family, you hear? I have two little girls and protecting them is my top priority nowadays. I don't want anything to do with this shit."  
"No offense taken," I replied. "I understand perfectly. Good night, Sookie."  
She seemed to relent a tiny bit, giving me a fraction of a smile.

x

In the car, Pamela almost buzzed with rage. She fished around in her pocket and threw my phone in my lap, then started the car and drove off, not deigning to look back at the couple on the porch.  
There was one more message from Eric:  
 _In case you didn't realise: this is a summons. Where are you?_  
I looked at my watch, it was half-past twelve. I saw him in my mind's eye, checking his phone, impatient to text me again because he wanted an answer when he wanted an answer – but too proud to write anything else. Eric Northman didn't do desperate.  
"Oh, answer your lover boy," Pamela snapped. "Tell him what I did, where we are. I know you're dying to. I can deal with the Wrath of Northman."  
My fingers paused on the screen. "When will we be back in New Orleans?" I asked.  
She glanced at me. "About four... four-thirty."  
 _I've got caught up in some human stuff_ I wrote. _I'll come by at 5. Is that ok?  
_ The reply was almost instantaneous:  
 _I'll be waiting.  
_ My stomach flipped and I grinned. When I looked up, Pam was trying to glare at me while keeping her eyes on the road – no mean feat.  
"It's okay," I said. "I didn't tell on you. And I won't, either."  
She sniffed. "Why not?"  
"Because we're friends, right? Or supposed to be friends, anyway. I think – I hope – this whole charade was well meant... on some level. I know you're trying to protect Eric." I swallowed. "From me."  
"I'm trying to protect him from _himself_ ," she snarled and I shrank away, taken aback. The car was filled with awkward silence for a couple of minutes. "Thank you," she said in a conciliatory tone. "I appreciate you keeping it to yourself."  
"You love him. And you'd never hurt him. So I have to trust you on that."

She abruptly pulled the car over and flicked on the hazard lights, turning in her seat to face me. Startled, I allowed her to pick up my two hands and hold them in her cold fingers, the pads of her thumbs stroking them with a kind of loving menace  
"I love Eric Northman in a way no human will ever understand," she stated. "Do you understand that, carrier?"  
Unexpectedly, I felt terrified. Pamela's face had a kind of eerie devotion and I suddenly realised that my past transgressions towards Eric Northman had brought me dangerously close to a slow and painful death at Pamela de Beaufort's beautifully manicured hands.  
"I understand," I whispered.  
She dropped my hands as though they were lead weights and started the car again.  
I sat back in my seat and breathed deeply till my heart had stopped racing in fear.


	20. Chapter 20

**San Francisco, 1881**

In her mind, Pamela Kross became Pamela Swynford de Beaufort after she found the book in the puddle. It had just lain there, a corner already rain-swollen, the pages wrinkled. She'd glanced surreptitiously around and picked it up, stuck it under her shawl. They didn't have many books in their home: her mother didn't read English and the only book she had in Estonian was the Bible, which Pamela in turn couldn't read.

Pamela looked at the book's dirty cover: _Notable Queens of England_ by Jeremiah Pratchett Cole. Her heart leapt and she pressed the book to her narrow chest. At fifteen, she was too tall, too skinny and too awkward for her age; she resented her beautifully-mended clothing that was cut from remnants or made from old clothes given to her mother in lieu of payment for her needlework. Pamela longed for elegance and luxury: she wanted to wear the satins and velvets of the girls that turned up in her mother's room every afternoon, looking to have their dresses and undergarments repaired. These women worked in the narrow house on the corner, a house that her mother explained was a boarding house for single women. Single women with gentleman callers: bad girls, her mother called them. Very bad girls – but very bad girls with pockets full of coins that paid for repairs on the spot. The girls wore too-bright colours, their narrow skirts bedecked with ruffles and fringes, huge bows on the bustles. They teased Pamela while they waited for her mother to quickly hem skirts or affix bows to bodices.  
"When are you going to start work, Pammie?" they'd ask, their eyes sly, their manner languorous.  
Mrs Kross would shush them, sewing faster as though she couldn't wait to get them out of her tiny room.  
Pamela could never understand how women who seemed to spend their entire day lounging around, yawning and swatting each other with their fans could incur so much damage to their clothes, particularly their underthings. Corset buttons loosened, lace torn, combinations all but ripped to bits. More than once her mother held up this undergarment – the camisole and drawers – and tut-tutted at the torn fabric.  
"Animals," she would say.  
Pamela would longingly stroke the ruffles and ruches and say, "I wish I could dress like them."  
And her mother would slap her fingers away.  
"No, no, not for you." Even after so many years in America, her English was still broken. "You must find rich man to marry."  
"What if I don't want to marry?" Pamela asked.

Men scared her. She had grown up in a world of women: her mother; Mrs Cornelsen next door; the old Estonian women at church. The many, many customers who came through her mother's door to buy her knitted stockings or have something mended. She didn't know any men, except the schoolmaster, Mr Figgis, who barely knew she existed.  
"What can you do else?" said her mother. "You are not clever to become school teacher. What can you do else?"  
And there it was. If Pamela was not clever enough to become a school teacher – which she wasn't – the only thing she might do was marry. The prospect scared her: what man would find her attractive? With her bony face and washed-out complexion, her blond hair unfashionably straight. She wanted to set her hair in rags to give herself curls like little girls on the street, but her mother refused to let her.  
"Do you want to look like the bad girls?" she would say, jerking her head in the direction of the corner house.  
 _Oh yes,_ Pamela thought _. Oh yes._

But now she had a new favourite book, her only book. She read about Queen Mathilda, Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, enthralled by the stifling prose of Mr J.P. Cole. But her favourite queen was undoubtedly the wife of John of Gaunt, Katherine Swynford de Beaufort. The woman that had been his mistress for many long years, had borne his children, been separated from him when he married another woman – and reunited with him in marriage when his wife died. It was impossibly romantic and Katherine de Beaufort had been a renowned beauty. Her name rolled off Pamela's tongue: Swynford de Beaufort. Then and there, Pamela promised herself that this would be the name that she would take when she was grown up. Why not? Kross was her father's name and she hadn't seen him since she was a toddler – why feel any loyalty to the name of her forefathers when she knew not one of them?

She shut the book, trying to press the wrinkled pages together. She would grow up and be rich and powerful. She would leave this cold little room where her mother worked by oil lamp, hunched over her needles. She would have her own house, decorated with the most sumptuous of fabrics, and wear clothes that had oodles of ruffles, ruches, bows and frills.  
She would become Pamela Swynford de Beaufort. A lady.

 **San Francisco 1905**

"Who is this?" the man asked, squinting to look through the lenses on his nose. He did not look up from the timepiece he was dissecting, like a surgeon, removing tiny parts with a fine metal instrument.  
"David Birnbaum, may I introduce you to my new progeny, Pamela Swynford de Beaufort?" Eric said with a flourish.  
The man finally looked up and Pamela saw he was one of Northman's kind: his face was deathly white in the light of the lamp. He was small with almost elfin features, and the fingers holding the metal tool were fine-boned and smaller than hers.  
"So that is what has kept you on the Barbary Coast this past week," Birnbaum said drily. "You were ... preoccupied."  
He turned back to the watch. "You did not tell me you had plans to create a child," he said.  
Eric threw himself on to a covered chair and pointed at a chintz sofa, indicating Pamela should sit.  
"It just happened," he said airily and Pamela got a feeling that the other vampire intimidated him a little, despite the fact that Eric was a good head taller than the man at the desk. Pam took a seat and looked around. The room was a gentleman's sitting room: dark green curtains and dark green wallpaper, with swirls of gold, like palm fronds. When she had left the brothel, her hand firmly enclosed in Eric's, she had hoped that she would be spirited away to somewhere glamorous – New York or Paris. Instead, he had taken her to a dark house on the other side of town. One that needed to be kept by a small army of servants, but appeared dark and empty, except for the small vampire in the drawing room.

It wasn't quite as she had imagined but it was close enough. It was, after all, the thing that she and all the other girls had dreamed of: that some wealthy client would see them for the lady they truly were and free them from their half-life on the fringe of society. When Pam had handed over the keys and the books to Lily, her second-in-command, the younger woman had been almost sick with envy.  
"Leaving to get married?" she'd sighed.  
And Pamela'd had to screw her eyes shut to ignore the thumping of Lily's blood, the proximity to her warm flesh. Eric had warned her that the first months and weeks would be hard; he had insisted that he would hunt for her till she learned to feed without killing – or accidentally turning.

Birnbaum finished turned a screw and then swivelled his chair around to look at Pamela.  
"A whore," he said directly.  
"You do jump to conclusions, David," Eric drawled. "Maybe she's a lady."  
"She's a whore," Birnbaum said, looking her up and down, taking in the gaudy glass pendant around her neck, the pink dress with the over-sized bow, the heavy eye make-up and rouge. "It's written all over her. Really, Eric? She must travel with us till she can fend for herself and you choose as a companion a whore?"  
"I didn't choose her," he said patiently. "It just happened."  
"It behoves you to choose well," Birnbaum said in the same patient tone. "Not just for your sake, but for mine as well."

Pamela cleared her throat discreetly to remind him that she was there.  
"How did you become a doxy, Miss de Beaufort?" Birnbaum said, removing his pince-nez. "Were you abandoned by some scoundrel? Left with child and without means?"  
She cleared her throat.  
"No, sir," she said. "I took to it voluntarily."  
Birnbaum laughed and slapped his thighs. Eric perked up, curious.  
"An honest whore, to boot. Well, tell all, Miss de Beaufort."  
"My mother died when I was sixteen and I had no family, no one to take me in. A ... a lady from a neighbouring house offered me lodgings with her girls. I was ... I was happy to take them."  
She had been happy to take them because there was nowhere to go: once she had spent her mother's meagre savings, eking them out by living on stale bread and fruit stolen from barrows, she realised that she had no other means of earning money and the landlord was banging on the door daily, looking for rent or for something of equal value – said with a lascivious look at Pamela's chest as she pushed the door shut in his face. Frightened, she went through her options. She thought she might take a job in a shop but didn't even know how one went about doing it. When she plucked up the courage to ask at a haberdasher's, the man behind the counter had taken in her scuffed boots and the frayed collar, and she'd been politely asked to leave.

"And you enjoyed being a little wagtail?" Birnbaum said, sounding amused.  
Pamela gave him a tight smile in return.  
"One makes the best of it," she said in her most supercilious way.  
The madam from the corner house had seen her pass by, day after day, and then had finally stopped her on the street. She started her off cleaning rooms and washing bed linens in exchange for an attic bed and three meals a day. Pamela had found it terrifying: the men with their beery breath, their grabbing hands, and she'd developed a sharp tongue and a sharper elbow to keep them at arm's length. As the years passed, she'd found it necessary to develop other skills and she'd found her own little clientele, mostly men that seemed to like being treated with disdain. If truth be told, she found the whole business messy and inelegant and would probably have endured it without further thought till one night a wealthy banker had paid a spectacular amount of money for an evening with two women. Pamela was chosen along with a dark-haired woman from Mexico called Rita, who made it her business to show Pamela how superfluous men – particularly rotund, middle-aged men - were to the pleasure of women.

"And you somehow managed to snare the illustrious Mr Northman and persuaded him to make you of our kind," Birnbaum said. "Well done, Miss de Beaufort."  
He carefully put his tools away, wrapping them in a leather cloth.  
"Who are you?" Pamela asked, emboldened.  
"I am the King of California," he replied, without a trace of irony or facetiousness.  
"The _king_ \- ?"  
"Yes, little vampire. Our territory is split into Kingdoms, and Queendoms if you will. I am the King of California. You are in my territory, you are now, officially, my subject, my thrall."  
"So you – you work for him?" she asked, turning to Eric. He nodded.  
"I am my liege lord's ... how do I explain it, David?"  
"My right-hand man," Birnbaum replied with a smile. "I am the brains. Mr Northman provides the brawn."  
"The King of California? So that means we'll be staying here?" she said, unable to stop the panic rising in her voice. "Here in San Francisco?"  
What about her dreams of New York? Travelling to London, visiting Paris? God damn it.

Birnbaum looked over at Eric, who shrugged and cleared his throat.  
"Well, actually, his majesty would like to move away. Perhaps to Sacramento," he said smoothly.  
Sacramento? Pamela tried not to curse. Sacramento was a thousand times worse.  
"But why?" she implored, suddenly changing tack. "What's wrong with San Francisco?"  
Birnbaum shook his head. "Something is wrong," he said. "But I don't know what. Something is coming."  
Pamela looked to Eric for help but he shook his head as well.  
"The old ones think they can predict the future," Eric said with a grin. "He would like us to move our goods and chattels inland to a sweet little backwater because he has a _feeling_."  
"Is he – are you older than Eric?" Pamela asked, unable to hide her curiosity. Birnbaum looked to be in his twenties, with his baby-smooth skin and delicate bones.  
Birnbaum and Northman laughed.  
"Much older," Birnbaum said. "Take his age and that again, that is how old I am."  
Pamela could barely fathom it. "That would make you ... two thousand years old!" she cried.  
"It would," the small vampire agreed. He stood up and dusted down his pants, brushing away imaginary fluff. "I have to feed. See to it that she has a coffin. I must say, this is very vexing, Eric. I have half a mind to administer unto her the True Death and be done with it."  
Said so casually, Pamela barely understood the meaning or the portent of his words. Then she realised and looked to Eric in horror.

In a blur, Eric was standing in front of her, his fangs extended.  
"No," he said dully. "Or you take me, too."  
Birnbaum looked at him expressionlessly. "Calm down, Northman," he said. "I have made up my mind that she may stay. But you look after her, do you hear? I don't even want to know she's here."  
Northman nodded silently and remained in front of her till Birnbaum left the room, Eric's long arms slightly outstretched as though he were shielding her from the other vampire.  
"Thank you," Pamela said, standing up, laying a hand on his back. She felt him tense beneath her touch and then turned to face her.  
Eric cupped her cheek in his large hand. "For as long as I exist," he said in an earnest voice, "I will always protect you. This is the bond between maker and progeny, a sacred bond, Pamela."  
"And for as long as I exist, I will protect you," she said eagerly but Eric laughed.  
"I'm sure you will do your very best, little vampire," he said warmly and bent to kiss her lips.


	21. Chapter 21

Maggie was silent and that made Pamela strangely uncomfortable. Normally she cared very little for the chatter of humans, but the carrier's silence filled the car: a reproachful, weighty stillness.

She could stand it no longer.  
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to ... scare you."  
Maggie nodded. "It's okay," she muttered.  
"It's just that ... well, I've been with Eric very long..."  
"How long?"  
"Over a hundred years."  
"A hundred years is not very long," she pointed out, a little defiantly. "Not to most vampires."  
"Well, it is to me," Pamela insisted.  
"Did you ever tell me when exactly you were turned?" she asked, turning slightly towards Pam, a gesture the vampire took as some kind of olive branch. She returned the concession with some personal information she usually didn't share.  
"No," Pamela said. She paused. "I don't think I ever did. You had access to the Book of the Undead, so you probably knew without having to ask. Eric turned me in 1905. In San Francisco."  
"Uh-huh. So did you celebrate your anniversary in 2005? Your turniversary?"  
She was grinning again and Pam felt a little relieved. Before the mess, the incident – she couldn't bring herself to give it a name – she had considered the redhead a friend. A human friend, to be sure, but a friend nonetheless.  
"We celebrated it in 2006," she said and she could've bit her tongue when she said it.  
"Why?"  
Pamela considered lying but she'd given away more than she cared to already.

"Eric turned me in 1905 but I always consider 1906 the year of my birth. My re-birth."  
"Why?" Maggie said again.  
"I'm really not comfortable talking about it."  
"Then why did you mention it?" she said, exasperated. "You can't just leave me hanging. Go on, Pam. Tell me."  
Pam glanced in the rear-view mirror and took her foot off the gas, slowing down a little. She would need a little more time to tell this story than the trip back to Shreveport required.

"When Eric turned me, he was working for the King of California. No, not the current one, the one before. Birnbaum was his name. He was a small man, with tiny hands and feet and a pointy little face. He claimed he was two thousand years old at that point, he'd been turned in a village by Lake Galilee. Yes, that Lake Galilee. Do the math and ask the question everyone does."  
"Did he ever meet Jesus Christ?" she asked, excitedly.  
"He didn't think so. Apparently a lot of wandering preachers and peddlers passed through his little town, there was nothing about that particular Nazarene that sticks out in his memory. Anyway, he spent many years in the Middle East, then he came to the New World and staked a claim on California. And because he knew Godric, he offered Eric a place in his nest."  
"Eric lived in a nest? Really? _Eric_?"  
"Oh, please," Pam said, waving a hand. "I know he likes to think he's a lone wolf but for as long as I have known him, Eric has always had a companion or two. He likes company, it gives him something to complain about. Anyway, it was a small nest: Birnbaum – that was his name – Eric, me and the sweetest little thing called Ava."

Pam closed her eyes for a second. Blond like Pamela, Ava was as small and fine-boned as the king, but she was softly-spoken, with the same faint Swedish accent as Eric. She had a heart-shaped face with clear green eyes, and she looked like an exquisite porcelain doll. Pamela fell in love with her on the spot, but Ava only had eyes for the king. She rebuffed Pam's subtle overtures gently and kindly, squeezing her arm and telling her that she perfectly understood how overwhelming one's urges were when one was so young. Rather than be annoyed by the woman who had burst in on their quiet arrangement _à trois_ , she'd been patient, gracious and welcoming – far more so than either of the men. She showed Pam where they could have their clothes made, introduced her to the other vampires in Birnbaum's circle and taught her enough Swedish to understand Eric's commands. She made Pamela repeat impossible tongue twisters, covering her mouth with her hands when Pamela stumbled over " _Sju sjösjuka sjömän_ " and laughing till bloody tears trickled down her face.

"What was the king like?" Maggie asked eagerly, startling Pam back to the dark car.  
"Birnbaum was ... kind in his own way, I suppose. He was a bit distant, a bit scholarly. He collected stamps, he liked to repair clockwork, he collected old books. He was fastidious and polite: he always asked after my well-being but didn't seem particularly interested in the answer. Do you know what I mean?"  
Maggie nodded her head.  
"But Eric liked him," she said. "Or, better said, Eric respected him and God knows, he doesn't respect all that many vampires. So I spent my first six months in that house, only a half-hour from where I'd been turned."  
"And then?"  
"What do you mean, and then?"  
"Where did you go then? Why did you leave? What happened in 1906?"

"I thought you were the history expert," Pamela said drily. "San Francisco, 1906? Ring any bells?"  
Maggie shook her head. "Europe in the Dark Ages is more my area of expertise," she said with a smile. "I don't know much about American history."  
"Fine. Time for an American history lesson, Ms Kennick. One night in April, Eric and I went to ground under the house as usual, leaving Ava and Birnbaum in the library. He would stay up until the sky started to turn pink because he was old enough to endure it; she would stay up with him because she loved him enough to endure it. Eric had no patience for the bleeds so we always took to ground before the sun came up. I don't know what happened next but it felt like someone picked the coffin up and shook it wildly; I was flung against the sides and lid, I remember waking just as it stopped. I lay in the darkness, bruised and bewildered, and then it started again. And the noise, Maggie: there was a sound like a train rushing through a station, a deafening noise, a roaring - but it was the sound of the house moving and groaning, the sound of the furniture being pounded to kindling or toppling down. Something crashed on my coffin and the lower part of it was crushed."  
"What was it?" she asked. "I mean, what caused the destruction?"  
Pamela looked over. "An earthquake," she said. Maggie bit her lip. "Go on," Pam said. "Google it, I know you want to."  
Maggie whipped out her phone and tapped the screen.  
"Oh my," she said. "Holy shit."  
Her fingers scrolled down and she held out the phone so Pam could see it.  
"No pictures, please," Pam said. "I was actually there, if you recall."

Maggie read silently for a few minutes.  
"Were you hurt?" she asked.  
"My legs were crushed," she replied simply. "I could feel immediately that the bones had been snapped, like chicken bones. I just lay there in the darkness and I could feel the blood from my eyes running down the side of my face but I couldn't do anything, I couldn't move. The lid of the coffin had been dislodged and through the crack I could see the sky. It was a strange colour and I thought it was the dawn: _That's it,_ I thought, _I will meet the True Death before my first year as an immortal is over._ And apparently I laughed out loud because that's how Eric found me. He took me into his own coffin and we spent the day there, praying there wouldn't be another earthquake or an aftershock, because that would have killed us for certain."

She remembered him scrabbling to remove debris, pulling the lid of her coffin aside. When he saw his progeny, his bloody face looked almost human in its relief. He seemed to gasp, to exhale, scratching and digging with his hands with renewed fervour.  
"We need to go to ground," he said. "We don't have time to find somewhere safe, we have to stay here."  
He yanked the lid off, dislodging a pile of stones and dirt that fell on her injured legs. Pamela yelped in pain.  
"My legs are broken," she'd said piteously.  
"They'll heal," was his curt reply. "We have mere minutes, Pamela. Minutes. Then the sun will come through that hole where the ceiling of the cellar used to be and you and I will fry. Get out of there."  
"I can't," she said and wept.  
Eric scooped up the dirt covering her legs, then put his large hands under her arms and pulled her out, as gently as he could, laying her down on the ground while he pulled his own coffin out from beneath a fallen door. He lifted the lid, then lay her inside, shoving the open coffin beneath the arch of the doorway that had led to the king's cold room. Looking up, Pamela saw the earthenware jugs that held the king's blood supplies broken on their shelves, the walls stained dark. Eric scrambled in beside her, pulled the lid over both of them, pushing Pam over a little so he could stretch out his legs. She cried out loud when his hand touched her.  
"I thought we would feel no pain!" she cried. "We're supposed to live forever!"  
"Oh, we feel pain," he said grimly and in the darkness she felt his arm move as his fingers touched his face, his head, looking for injuries. "Your legs will heal, Pamela, but you will have to endure the pain till they do."  
"What about the king?" she asked. "What about Ava?"  
"We won't know till night falls," he said. "We have to hope that the ground will be still and no well-meaning humans will find us."

She leaned her head on his chest and closed her eyes. She felt her maker go still, leave consciousness. She tried to do the same but it was some time before she could; her face was crusty with dried blood before she could manage to drift into their deep black sleep.

"So you survived?" Maggie asked and checked herself. "Obviously. Duh. What about the king? And Ava?"  
"The king was gone, nothing but a bloody mass. You've seen a vampire staked, you can imagine it. Ava said he'd been impaled when the house shifted, his death was instantaneous."  
"She survived, then, too?"  
Pamela considered the question, then flicked the indicator to turn off to her apartment.  
"She was barely alive," she said. "One side of her had lain in the light and she was burned badly, almost beyond recognition: her entire right side and that side of her face."  
That beautiful white face was grotesque: the side that had lain in shadow was white, streaked with bloody tears, but the side that had been exposed was charred black, like her body. Ava's fingers – burned, tattered flesh through which Pamela could see the startling white of her bones – stroked Pamela's face and she'd felt the ash they'd left on her skin.

"She'd survived the day because of the smoke – there were fires all over the city, with so much smoke that it blocked out the sun. But there was enough daylight to burn her badly. She'd seen Birnbaum die and by the time Eric found her, she didn't want to heal. So Eric told me to stake her."  
Maggie gulped, her face aghast.  
"It was my duty," Pamela said stiffly. "She was my friend. She was the first vampire I staked, but the only one I have ever staked for mercy."  
There was silence in the car. Pamela pressed a button to lower the window and swiped her key-card at the scanner. The door to the apartment complex's underground car-park rose smoothly and she drove in. She swung neatly into her parking space and turned off the ignition.

"That night we walked away, Eric and I. We literally walked away from that house, walked out of the city with nothing but the clothes on our backs. We passed by mangled bodies with little children crying next to them still in their nightclothes. We picked our way over the debris of buildings that was blocking roads. We skirted raging fires, we crossed deep gashes in the earth that had been bridged by planks or doors from ruined houses. I was hungry, my legs hadn't fully healed and I needed blood but Eric would not let me feed – and God knows we passed enough pitiful, bleeding humans as we walked away. But he said that they had suffered enough without us preying on them like vultures on the dead."  
Maggie was looking at her, her blue eyes serious. The neon lights of the car park made her pale skin almost as white as Pamela's own.  
"At dawn we went to ground in the cellar of a barn on a farm outside the city and fed from the farmer who found us the following night. We walked till we reached a town called Antioch and from there we organised our journey to the East Coast. We were in New York till Eric left for Germany in the 1930s."

She opened the car door and got out. Maggie followed her, grabbing her bag off the back seat.  
"I understand, Pam," she said as she caught up. "I know what he means to you, I really do."  
"He's my maker," she said shortly.  
"You think he's your saviour," Maggie returned.  
Pamela tsk-tsked as she opened the door to the stairwell.  
"Honestly, Maggie," she said with a lightness she did not feel. "Don't be so dramatic."


End file.
